Baroness Deech

Dame Ruth Lynn Deech, DBE, having been created Baroness Deech, of Cumnor in the County of Oxfordshire, for life—Was, in her robes, introduced between the Baroness Hale of Richmond and the Lord Patten of Barnes.

Baroness Valentine

Josephine Clare Valentine, having been created Baroness Valentine, of Putney in the London Borough of Wandsworth, for life—Was, in her robes, introduced between the Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay and the Lord King of Bridgwater.

International Centre for Reconciliation

Lord Williams of Elvel: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they support the efforts of the Coventry International Centre for Reconciliation in connection with current problems in Nigeria; and, if so, how they propose to give practical effect to their support.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government fully support the efforts of the International Centre for Reconciliation in Nigeria. We currently fund its work to promote reconciliation and peace-building in Plateau State. We also support the ICR's efforts to bring about reconciliation between the Ogoni people and Shell in the Niger delta, and its work in northern Nigeria. We are actively considering further ICR work in Kaduna state and the Niger delta.

Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I am grateful for that relatively encouraging Answer. However, given that there is a serious situation in Nigeria, as he said, between the predominantly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south, with overt arms smuggling into Nigeria, would he consider how far the Government are prepared to go financially to support an organisation that does this valuable work?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I wholly accept the value of the work that is done; it is remarkable and laudable in every respect. My noble friend will not expect me to make financial announcements from the Dispatch Box, but I can say to the House that we are reviewing three ICR proposals for projects in Kaduna state to reinforce previous work that has been done there and in the Niger delta, including tackling proliferation of small arms. If the projects are approved, our financial support to ICR would amount to £402,500 over the two financial years 2006–07 and 2007–08.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, we take this opportunity to extend our condolences to President Obasanjo on the sad death of his wife, Stella, and on the tragic accident in Lagos that killed 117 people last Saturday. In thanking the Minister and the Foreign Office for the help that they have given the international centre so far, may I ask him whether he is satisfied that the organisation's work in the delta dovetails properly with the peace and security strategy that has been developed with the help of a number of stakeholders, including Shell, and offers a comprehensive solution to the problems in the delta?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I start by echoing the noble Lord's sentiment. I spoke to the High Commissioner for Nigeria this morning and I shall be writing to President Obasanjo, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting on several occasions, to send our condolences on the death of his wife, Stella. She won many international human rights rewards, not least from trying to secure the president's release from unjustified imprisonment. We also send our condolences over the Bellview Airline crash at Lissa, where 117 people lost their lives. I know that I reflect the views of the House in saying that.
	I believe that the work that is done by the international centre, which is a quite remarkable organisation, does dovetail with the work of others and has added a huge amount of value. I can see it doing nothing other than adding value in future. I continue to express my admiration for what it has done and have a positive attitude in terms of what can be achieved in future.

Viscount Waverley: My Lords, would the Minister recognise the close friendship and excellent work of the Ooni of Ife from the south, together with the Emir of Kano, who represents a point raised in the initial supplementary question?

Lord Triesman: Yes, my Lords, given the difficulties that have existed between peoples in the north and the south of Nigeria—and, indeed, between some of the peoples of the north and south of that country—all the work done by those organisations has added a great deal to achieving peace and security. In many ways, they are among the best prospects for the succession on the occasion of the elections in Nigeria next year, along with the very sound legacy that President Obasanjo has created.

The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford: My Lords, would the Minister accept that civil society agencies such as Christian Aid, which I chair, and some of our church links—when I was the Bishop of Guildford, we had a very strong link with Nigeria—have a huge respect for the behind-the-scenes work that is done by the ICR? Would he allow me to add my voice to encouraging the Government to be as helpful as they can to that organisation?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I acknowledge at once that much of the success of ICR has come from its quiet, dignified and behind-the-scenes diplomacy. Indeed, I suspect that there would be very little success if it was done in any other way. The engendering of respect between peoples who hitherto have been very hostile to each other demands very sensitive handling, and that is one of the organisation's great accomplishments.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, this has indeed been a bad week for Nigeria, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, rightly reminded us. I was about to say a bad week for poor Nigeria—but the reality is very different. This is a country that has absorbed trillions and trillions of dollars in enormous oil and other commodity revenues over recent years with, alas, very little impact on development. While the work of the body that we are discussing has been excellent and should be encouraged, is there not a lesson here for all of us—that cash and budgetary support are not necessarily the main drivers of development or, to put it more crudely, that corruption and bad governance can destroy all development efforts and undermine all supplies of funds, however large?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very strong point. The Gleneagles agreement was an agreement to provide aid in the case of Nigeria—and the Paris Club was the principal route by which aid was provided—and to tackle corruption. Tackling corruption in Nigeria has been a major initiative that President Obasanjo has himself supported, cutting down the avenues to corruption. DfID is providing support for Nigerian participation in that process, strengthening the anti-corruption agencies and working to strengthen co-operation in specific issues. The Metropolitan Police are also very helpful to the Nigerian law enforcement agencies. Both tasks are needed. We need to sustain the peace process and the aid process, and we most certainly do not want the money that goes into Nigeria—for poor people in Nigeria—ending up on the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich.

Baroness Whitaker: My Lords, will my noble friend commend the Metropolitan Police specifically for their work with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria, the Metropolitan Police now having frozen about £10 million in assets belonging to the charged state governor of Bayelsa, and have also isolated close to £1 million in his bank accounts and in cash. Does my noble friend not agree that all that, if he is found guilty, will go back to the people of Nigeria?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, that is quite true. The Metropolitan Police arrested the state governor of Bayelsa on 15 September. The money laundering offences with which he may be charged will be investigated. Of course, if there is a conviction, he will be repatriated. The House will accept that I should not comment further on something that is, at the moment, an active police matter.

Central America: Relief Effort

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What assistance they propose following the recent volcanic eruption in El Salvador and the damage caused by Hurricane Stan in much of central America.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the countries worst affected by Hurricane Stan are Guatemala and El Salvador. This followed the volcanic eruption of 1 October, which also had a significant humanitarian impact on El Salvador. In both countries, the national emergency response agencies are providing food, water and basic relief items. Our focus is on supporting the immediate relief effort. The European Community Humanitarian Office has contributed approximately £1.2 million for emergency relief in El Salvador and Guatemala.

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, that is extremely encouraging. I note, however, that most of this aid is going through non-governmental organisations and other institutions. After Hurricane Mitch in 1998—and the devastation this time has been more serious—some specific reconstruction projects were undertaken, which produced a great deal of good will in the area. Would the noble Baroness reconsider the idea of giving specific aid, tied to British engineering consultancy and supply? That would create enormous good will and be tied to Great Britain's effort in the area which would be much appreciated.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the majority of UK funding is going through NGOs: PLAN International UK and CARE International. I am sorry to disappoint the noble Viscount, but there are no current plans for longer-term assistance in reconstruction and recovery in El Salvador and Guatemala. We do not have a bilateral programme in either country. The noble Viscount will be aware that the Spanish are the most important donors in the region. However, we will make a contribution through our contributions to the World Bank, the European Union and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Baroness Northover: My Lords, will the noble Baroness tell us how many countries have now signed up to the recent proposal that came out of the UN summit in September for a substantial UN standing fund for disaster relief so that the UN is not delayed in getting relief to areas like this by sending out appeals and waiting for a response? The Government have backed this scheme. Will her colleague Hilary Benn be pressing this on the EU development ministers he is meeting in Leeds this week?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I am afraid I do not have the exact figure. From memory, I think six countries have done so, but I will write to the noble Baroness. We have made a significant contribution to that fund ourselves and, indeed, have said that we will make a further £100 million available should other countries come on board. We will continue to press our G8, EU and other colleagues to contribute to what will be an important disaster management fund.

Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, the noble Baroness will be aware that since this Question was tabled there has been an even more devastating hurricane which has done colossal damage in the Yucatan. Does she share my view that many of us who are frequent visitors to Mexico and many others hope that the British Government will give full and early support to the Mexican Government in dealing with the major problems that will arise from that damage?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, we currently have 25 people working there. The Mexican Government have not asked for any specific assistance, partly because their own national emergency response is usually so effective.

Baroness Hooper: My Lords, does the noble Baroness think that because we no longer have a British embassy in El Salvador, it has in any way hampered our relief efforts?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I do not think so. Our relief efforts to date have been through NGOs which have a very good track record in their experience of working on the ground. The noble Baroness will also be aware that over a period of time we have been moving our development assistance from bilateral assistance through individual countries to regional assistance and assistance through institutions such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the European Union. We have done so—and I know that there are great disparities within countries—because these countries qualify as middle-income countries.

Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, can the Minister tell me whether the small fund that was available to our ambassadors in Central American countries to manage as they saw fit, and which has done a great deal of good locally when spent, still exists?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, that fund still exists. There is also something called the Civil Society Challenge Fund which civil society organisations can access.

MRI Scans: EU Directive

Baroness Hayman: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What action they will take in response to the concerns about the potential effects of the European Union Physical Agents Electromagnetic Fields Directive on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) services in the United Kingdom.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the directive covers the health and safety of employees in the medical sector who are exposed to electromagnetic fields, including those providing MRI services. I am aware of misgivings about the scope of the directive and met last week with a group of leading doctors. I have asked the Health and Safety Executive to convene a meeting with interested parties in the medical sector to discuss a way forward that protects the interests of both patients and staff.

Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for that reply and for the efforts that I know he is making to resolve a potentially very serious situation. While this may seem a technical and arcane issue, is my noble friend aware that the reason that 12 other countries' leading experts, clinicians and scientists wrote to the Secretary of State for Health was to express their concern that a measure designed to protect employees was so ultra precautionary that it would end up prejudicing the care of patients in need of magnetic resonance imaging? Will he undertake to ensure that the Government's approach to this problem and to the directive itself is based on science and is not so disproportionate as to affect patient care?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I can assure my noble friend that I want to ensure that the Government take a sensible approach to this directive. I am aware of the letter sent by the eminent doctors. That is why I convened a meeting with some of the leaders of the medical profession and have asked the HSE to conduct a meeting with them. I will keep very close track of the progress made in those discussions.
	As for the science, I think it worth saying that the limits set in the directive are based on international guidelines, guidelines which themselves have been endorsed in this country by the Health Protection Agency. We clearly need a balance between staff protection and the need to care for patients.

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: My Lords, does the Minister accept that if the proposed static field limits are included, it will mean that MRI scanners cannot be cleaned between patients if a patient should vomit or have diarrhoea in the scanner? Very sick patients are scanned, and since the 1980s we do not have evidence of harm to the health of staff from undertaking this clinical work.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that detailed information. On the question of static field limits, that issue has been removed from the directive, pending further research and review of available evidence. I shall ensure that the information that the noble Baroness has raised today is considered.

Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, will the Minister tell us how many pages the directive had when it left Brussels, bearing in mind that when I followed up a directive that had four pages when it left Brussels, it ended up here with 74?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I have the directive here; it consists of nine pages. I am sure that it is backed up by more detailed pages. It is a very good read, and I would be delighted to send a copy to the noble Lord.

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: My Lords, while I understand the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, will the Minister say whether the Health Protection Agency and the National Radiological Protection Board consulted leading medical experts in the field before the directive was drafted? We do not want to be dealing with that afterwards. If so, did they fight our corner vigorously while it was being drafted? If not, why not?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, it is not appropriate for me to answer on behalf of those agencies. I assure the noble Lord that the Health and Safety Executive, which leads for the Government in negotiations in that area, has consulted medical people on a number of occasions during the progress of the directive. Because the directive works within guidelines that have already been established both internationally and in this country, the HSE was assured that it was working on the right lines. I am exercised to ensure that at the end of the day we get the right balance between effectiveness of treatment for patients and staff safety. The best way forward is to convene this meeting, which I hope will lead to further work. We can then reach a balanced and proportionate decision on the issue.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I am sure the House is confident that my noble friend will do everything he can to reduce the effects of this directive, which appears to be totally condemned by every expert that anyone has ever heard of. The question remains. Brussels is not a mystical exercise. When the directive was passed, who was there for us? Was it just someone on COREPER or a Minister? I am sure it was not my noble friend, but the House is entitled to know who agreed to it in the first place.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, it is not as easy to answer that question as my noble friend suggests. He will know that the passage of a European directive takes many years. The first discussions took place in 1993, so many Ministers and, indeed, two governments were involved. Qualified majority voting was used, inevitably. There are always compromises to be made. I understand that, as a result of the work of the HSE, a number of modifications were made to the directive. In the end the HSE acts under the authority of Ministers.

Lord Patel: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the European directive is based on inadequate, if not poor, scientific evidence? Proper funding is required for research that would probably take two years before such a directive could be implemented.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I know that it is the view of some members of the medical profession that the scientific base on which this directive has been made is not as robust as they would wish. The limits have come from the scientific review process and published research in peer review journals. That led to international guidelines and the guidelines produced by the HPA. I accept that it is very important to look all the time for more robust evidence. Part of my conversation with the HSE is about ensuring that we continue to commission research in this area.

Lord Vinson: My Lords, if subsidiarity means anything, are we not as a nation perfectly capable of organising our own health and safety standards? Do we have to depend upon being given guidance by other nations?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, that goes a little wider than my normal brief. All I would say is that the Health and Safety Executive is leading discussions about reforming the whole approach to health and safety legislation in Europe, because in this country the HSE has an outstanding record in proportionate regulation and in concentrating its focus on where the high risks are. We wish to see Europe adopt that approach. I would add that the Health and Safety Executive has been outstandingly successful over 30 years. Fatal accidents at work have been reduced by 70 per cent in those 30 years. That is a remarkable achievement.

Kashmir

Baroness Williams of Crosby: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether some of the helicopters deployed by the United Kingdom and the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq can be redeployed for a brief period to Kashmir, to move tents, blankets and food to homeless people before the onset of the Himalayan winter.

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I can confirm that, in addition to C130 assets that are already committed, the MoD is deploying three heavy-lift Chinook helicopters, with accompanying personnel, in support of the Pakistan relief effort. There are no UK military helicopters deployed in Afghanistan, and those that are operating in Iraq are fully committed to ongoing operations, which include the current roulement of UK troops and various security tasks. The deployment of US assets is entirely a matter for the US Administration.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will be pleased about the three Chinooks being sent over the weekend and, in particular, I congratulate DfID on the active part that it has played. However, it took 11 days to make the decision to send the Chinooks—11 days in which literally hundreds of people who might have been saved died in Pakistan. If we believe in the battle for hearts and minds, what more effective way is there to win that battle than to show the Muslim community throughout the world that we care profoundly about those who suffer who are Muslim as well as those who are not?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right to say that speed is of the essence in this matter. We should recognise that the United Kingdom responded extremely quickly, for example in the provision of a number of helicopters before the MoD Chinooks. In terms of the work that DfID has done, over £18 million has already been committed out of the £33 million that has been set aside, including a whole range of support, such as tents, global positioning systems and the UK search and rescue team, which has already made a dramatic impact on the ground. However, we must also recognise that taking something as complex as a Chinook helicopter into the terrain in which the disaster has taken place is no small task. The way in which the Ministry of Defence has been able to respond in deploying the helicopters—they are now deployed—is something on which it is to be congratulated. It takes time to do that, and it has been done in response to the need that has been described, as the situation has evolved on the ground.

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, would the Minister not agree that it is in times of crisis and loss that differences, be they political or religious, should be put aside so that we can come to each other's aid? In the light of that, what steps have Her Majesty's Government taken to help ease the co-ordination and joint relief effort between India and Pakistan?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right: this is an opportunity for us to show the way in which we can better work together to address some of the issues. I am pleased to be able to announce to the House today that, in addition to what we have already announced, in response to a request from the United Nations to DfID, we are sending a four-man logistics planning team to the UN joint logistics centre in Islamabad. It will leave tomorrow. That is in direct response to a recognition of the importance of having better logistics planning, in terms of the total helicopter effort. The helicopters are not being used as efficiently as they might be. We are supporting that logistics effort. In addition, the UK has a 14-person medical support unit committed to the NATO response force. We expect that it will shortly ask us to deploy that, and we are ready to do so.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: My Lords, with the greatest respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, I ask whether it would not be a little more balanced view to recognise that once again the British Government have been in the forefront of the humanitarian relief effort; perhaps to suggest that the French Government, who have the largest fleet of helicopters in Europe, might join us in that humanitarian effort; and that the plethora of journalists might give up their helicopters and allow them to be used for relief?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I join my noble friend in noting that it is important for all countries to do everything they can to support the relief effort. The three UK heavy-lift helicopters that have gone over are a significant proportion of our free capability at high readiness.

Lord King of Bridgwater: My Lords—

Lord Garden: My Lords—

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, it is the turn of the Cross Benches. If the question is brief, it may be possible for the noble Lord to speak.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, in view of the deteriorating weather conditions in Kashmir, can the Minister tell the House the number of tents that have been flown into Kashmir and how many are required? Can he say something about the reconstruction of roads to ensure that the more remote regions can be reached?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, it is a significant number. The key point is that the tents have to be suitable for winter conditions. I shall write to the noble Lord with the detailed number. The noble Lord makes an important point on timing. The helicopters are important now because there is a short window for heavy lifts into the area. That is why we have been able to get them on to the ground quickly.

Lord King of Bridgwater: My Lords, is not the need to have the capability for rapid deployment? With great respect to the Minister, I recall that he said how quick that was. Many of us were surprised that they were not available sooner when time, as he rightly says, is of the essence, with many lives being lost every day.

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I assure the House that the response time needed by the MoD for the supply of those helicopters, through the C130, has been very short. That has been in response to an evolving situation of the particular type of heavy-lift helicopter that is required for the type of terrain and weather conditions now faced. The earlier helicopters to which I referred were of a lighter type for the earlier conditions; the Chinooks are to respond to what is happening now.

Lord Garden: My Lords, as a former Chinook pilot, I can say that it is a unique capability, and I am glad that we have them there. However, I have said time and again that we have inadequate numbers of support helicopters in our fleet, a situation made worse by having eight grounded through the messing up of procurement that the PAC considered earlier in the year. In the light of the Minister's Answer to a Written Question yesterday that there were no plans to increase our numbers of support helicopters, can he say when he will change the priorities? After all, if we are to be a force for good in the world, we had better have enough of those helicopters.

Lord Drayson: My Lords, the noble Lord is right in that the heavy lift capability in our helicopters is vital to our going forward. We have put in place in the Ministry of Defence a new helicopter strategy to get the balance right between the heavy lift and other requirements. The noble Lord is right, as the NAO has reported, that the total number of helicopters that we have available is an issue. We are putting significant financial resources into addressing that point.

Business

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, with the leave of the House, immediately following the debate on the first group of amendments to the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, my noble friend Lord Adonis will repeat a Statement entitled "Schools White Paper".

Estate Agents (Independent Redress Scheme) Bill [HL]

Lord Dubs: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to amend the Estate Agents Act 1979 to make provision for independent consumer redress in connection with the sale and purchase of residential property. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Dubs.)
	On Question, Bill read a first time, and ordered to be printed.

Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House in Committee accordingly.
	[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
	Clause 1 [Hatred against persons on racial or religious grounds]:

Lord Hunt of Wirral: moved Amendment No. 1:
	Page 1, line 2, leave out "Part 3 of"

Lord Hunt of Wirral: First, perhaps I may say how pleased the Committee is to see the Minister in her rightful place on the Front Bench.
	Amendment No. 1 stands in my name and in those of the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill—the principal architect of these important clauses—the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey of Clifton, and the noble Lord, Lord Plant of Highfield. For the convenience of the Committee, it may be useful if I speak also to Amendments Nos. 2, 31 and 32, which I believe are consequential to Amendment No. 1.
	I make it clear that we yield to no one in the degree to which we all abhor, deprecate and deplore the very idea of hating someone because of his religion. It is a thoroughly bad thing if anyone attempts, through whatever medium, to inspire or instil such hatred in others. We must not, however, fall into the trap of what Rowan Atkinson described last week as thinking, "Oh yes, religious hatred. That sounds like a bad thing. Let's have a law against it". Why? Because it is the bedrock of any tolerant, liberal and free society that we must all learn to live according to certain first principles. One of the most fundamental of those is that, from time to time, we must tolerate other people expressing sentiments or engaging in activities that we find unappealing or, indeed, distasteful.
	The right to cause offence is infinitely more important and fundamental to our way of life than any right not to be offended. As English PEN put it in what I consider to be an admirable campaign: free expression is no offence and should not become one. Of course, certain lines must be drawn between what is acceptable and what is unacceptable to the vast majority of citizens. There is now widespread acceptance of the principle that offences can be aggravated if they are motivated entirely or in part by sentiments that are generally regarded as repugnant, extreme and unacceptable. We all know and accept that. However, it is the mark of a tolerant, civilised and mature society that discordant, disagreeable and even dissident voices are heard and freely challenged in rational debate and not silenced by the courts.
	As my right honourable friend David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, pointed out so eloquently in another place:
	"For centuries, the United Kingdom has had a tradition of religious tolerance and, at the same time, a tradition of extremely robust religious disputation . . . religious freedom and free speech have co-existed.".—[Official Report, Commons, 23/5/05; col. 439.]
	The best remedy for evil ideas is more speech, not less speech. You cannot promote tolerance by limiting freedom of expression. Tolerance and freedom of speech buttress one another. They are inseparable siblings, not alternatives.
	Our debate is beautifully augmented by the publication only yesterday of the report on this Bill by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which raises important questions about the implications of the Bill. The committee's considered view is that,
	"without amendment to make specific reference to advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to hostility, violence and discrimination, we have concerns about the potential adverse impact of broad offences on freedom of expression, including their compatibility with the principles of legal certainty and proportionality anchored in Article 10 of the Convention.
	As they stand, without amendment, the new offences could arguably have an adverse effect on free speech. We draw this matter to the attention of both Houses".
	I thank their Lordships for producing those timely comments because they strengthen our belief that in its present form the Bill goes far too far. We thought that the Government were beginning to recognise that. Certainly 80 per cent of the speeches at Second Reading stressed that. We are therefore disappointed that no government amendments are proposed.
	I even offered two weeks ago to sit down with the Government—Ministers, officials and parliamentary draftsmen—and my colleagues to see if we could agree the necessary changes. Sadly, until today, no one has been in touch with me to accept that offer. So, thanks to the skill of the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, we are now presenting the Committee with this group of amendments. We have come to the conclusion that rather than amending Part III of the Public Order Act 1986, which relates to racial hatred, it would be far more sensible to leave it untouched. Instead, we are now seeking to add an entirely new schedule to that Act to deal with religious hatred. That vastly improves the Bill before us in two important ways.
	At a stroke, it makes the Bill far more comprehensible and readily understood for the expert and the lay person alike. It also delivers a clear Bill dealing specifically with religious hatred and not interspersed with racial hatred, just as the Labour Party promised in its manifesto earlier this year. So we enable the Government to fulfil that commitment and, indeed, to do so in much more specific terms than originally set out in the Bill. In other words, we believe that we have created a far better opportunity to do what Ministers say that they want to do; protecting the person and not the belief.
	We have therefore tabled amendments that would maintain the criminal offence of threatening, but would remove the words "abusive" and "insulting" from the proposed offence and move them into the proposed freedom of expression defence. Let me explain why. Ministers say that they wish to defend people as opposed to their beliefs. Is it possible, however, to defend them from hatred as people while also preserving the right of others to criticise their beliefs? In other words, is it possible to draw a distinction between a group of people who share a religion or an ideology and the natural desire to protect them from hatred and on the other hand the religion or ideology itself? If someone insults my beliefs, I can perfectly well argue that they insult me too. They/we can amount to the same thing, especially in religious matters.
	Similarly, if someone is abusive about my beliefs, once again I should be free to argue that they are abusing me too. Therefore, if we wish to apply criminal sanctions to protect people from feeling insulted or abused when someone criticises or attacks their beliefs, it is obvious that the beliefs themselves as well as the individual who feels insulted or abused are being protected. In both cases it can be impossible to separate the person from the belief.
	Protecting an individual from such an offence with regard to his or her race is entirely reasonable. I have always strongly supported such moves, which I believe to be sensible and admirable. Beliefs are different, however, not least because we are entitled to change them and do change them from time to time. We choose them; they do not choose us. They have a life of their own, as it were. Ministers say that they want to protect the person and not the belief, and threatening someone on account of their beliefs is clear-cut. It deserves to be a criminal offence and we accept that in these amendments. However, if these amendments are accepted the Bill will indeed apply clearly, straightforwardly and exclusively to the person and not to the belief. It will protect people, as Ministers quite rightly say it should. These amendments do not affect the essence of the Bill; they seek only to provide much highly regarded and much needed reassurance to protect freedom of speech, which will benefit not just a minority and not just a majority but every single one of us.
	I will leave it to my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, to go into the amendments in greater detail. However, I shall add that we have repeatedly been told that the Bill is not intended to affect performing artists, preachers and the like, but Ministers have never adequately explained why that is not made clear and explicitly guaranteed in the Bill. We now give them the opportunity to do that. In fact, in the other place many amendments were tabled from all parts of that House and by different parties to guarantee the freedom of expression that Ministers say they want, but none was accepted. I hope that that position will change today. We will continue to ask Ministers to explain how the reassurance about which I speak can be gained without explicit and express protection.
	What are the guarantees against the encroachment not only of religious thought police but also of self-censorship, which is perhaps the greatest expression of free expression in a liberal democracy? We have to face the fact that if we make it a criminal offence to stir up hatred against a group of people, then we create a climate within which people will think twice about even criticising it. In turn, people will surely run shy of saying anything that might stir up hatred of the ideology or religion itself and also develop a fear of being critical of it, satirising it or even poking the slightest fun at it. It is no good Ministers claiming that there is no slippery slope to self-censorship because we all know that there is. Someone will also push out the boundaries of this type of legislation.
	In any case—and I am sure that we will hear a lot about this in the debate—race and religion are different. To criticise the colour of someone's skin is irrational. To criticise someone's religion or politics is a wholly different matter. I could go so far as to say that it is a fundamental human right that we are able to do so. Of course there will be a price to pay in terms of freedom of expression should this legislation be passed in its present form. The question is whether it is a price worth paying. That is the case that Ministers need to make today. They must come out of simple bland denial and start giving us a much more specific argument. They have not done so up to now.
	Let me explain why we need that in this debate. Our crucial fear is that the Bill is unnecessary and potentially damaging because it is more likely to inflame hatred than to subdue it. No government or parliament can legislate hatred out of existence however hard they try. But alongside this basic argument, we are entitled to ask why this legislation as presently drafted does not explicitly protect and entrench one of our oldest rights and freedoms, namely freedom of speech and expression. Can there be a greater responsibility on all of us than our responsibility to defend basic freedoms, and freedom of expression above all else? We all know that we live in dangerous and tense times. The weekend's events reminded us of that. But we must take care not to pass legislation which is likely to exacerbate our problems rather than diminish them. If any measure is brought before this House and this Parliament that may in any way inhibit our most cherished freedoms then, surely, there is a massive onus on its supporters to prove that the benefits dramatically, overwhelmingly and unarguably exceed the likely costs. At the moment, Ministers and their Bill palpably fail that test. I beg to move.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: We on the Liberal Democrat Benches are delighted to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, and the Conservative opposition; with Labour Back-Benchers such as the noble Lord, Lord Plant—who serves with me on the Joint Committee on Human Rights—and with Cross-Benchers such as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey of Clifton, who regrets that he cannot be here this afternoon. It is a great coalition across this House, and well beyond, seeking to make the Bill fit for the Government's stated purpose.
	I am grateful to Ministers and their advisers for having met me on several occasions during the past year. That includes the Minister, the Attorney-General and most recently the Home Secretary. Yet I cannot admire the way in which this sensitive issue has been handled by the Government. I am sorry to say that the Government have played politics with religion and race; a dangerous game that they may come to regret. Having promised me that there would be full consultation after the recent general election, they made it a manifesto Bill. They used it as a means of persuading Muslims to vote Labour and introduced it without the promised consultation—almost as an emergency measure, driven, no doubt, by a Prime Minister who is now in such a hurry. They have lacked a sense of proportion, using the sledgehammer of a sweepingly broad array of new speech crimes to deal with what they admit to be a minute gap in the existing law protecting public order.
	Ever since Mr. Blunkett introduced the original version, after the barbarous atrocities of 9/11, Ministers have refused to contemplate any significant change to the content or the way in which the proposed laws are written. The Home Office has worked mechanically, simply reading the race hate law literally into the very different context of religion and belief. Worse still, almost, the Government have even threatened this House with use of the Parliament Act to ram the Bill through if we do not do their bidding. That would be done in spite of the fact that—as the Law Lords made clear in deciding the hunting ban appeal, and as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, then said—trust will be eroded if the Parliament Act procedure is used to enact measures which are, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Steyn has put it, exorbitant or not proportionate.
	The Bill would criminalise abusive or insulting speech, as well as threatening speech. As Rowan Atkinson points out, it promotes the idea that there should be a right not to be offended when the right to offend is far more important. Because it suffers from the twin vices of over-breadth and vagueness, the Bill threatens—as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has explained—to chill free expression and to encourage self-censorship.
	The Government have won political support from the Muslim Council of Britain, but have aroused deep anxiety and strong opposition among many British Muslims—as I know from appearing on a broadcast on Islam Channel some months ago—as well as opposition from people from all faiths, people without religious beliefs, from English PEN, from Index and from the Fleet Street lawyers' association and the creative writers, broadcasters and entertainers whom they represent. The Government have aroused the ire and hostility of the Church of England, of evangelical Christian associations and of the National Secular Society. It is a remarkable achievement to unite such a broad and disparate cross-section of British society in opposition to their proposals.
	In a Home Office press release on 9 June, Paul Goggins, MP—the Minister in charge—had to explain that the Bill, in his words,
	"will not rule out criticism of religion, or outlaw the telling of religious jokes. It is about protecting individuals from hatred, and the fear of violence and harassment".
	In the same press release, the Attorney-General, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said that the Bill is about protecting people from hatred, not faiths from criticism. The Home Office press release explained that the Bill would not prohibit people, including artists and performers, from offending, criticising or ridiculing faiths. It is a measure of the vagueness of the Bill that its reach has had to be explained in Home Office press releases to limit its loose language. That is not the way to give fair warning to the citizen of what conduct will or will not risk breaking the law.
	Only this afternoon, I was given a letter from the Minister with an account of Home Office guidance that would be given to try to patch up the defects of the Bill. I urge Members of the Committee to read those documents, because they both make matters much worse, as I shall explain soon. One cannot patch up serious criminal law with ministerial guidance after it is enacted. The principle of legality and legal certainty requires otherwise, as Glanville Williams pointed out years and years ago.
	Our amendments are designed to give effect to those ministerial explanatory statements by introducing essential safeguards to increase legal certainty, to prevent the new offences from sweeping too broadly and to deal with the chilling of free expression. We seek to reduce tension and intolerance between different ethnic and religious groups through our amendments. Unlike the Bill as it stands, the provisions of which the Committee can understand only by studying the Public Order Act 1986, as amended, our amendments have the merit of being capable of being understood as a self-contained code on inciting hatred on grounds of religion or belief.
	They contain three safeguards that we regard as essential. No doubt in her reply, the Minister will tell the House whether the Government agree that they are essential to secure compliance with the rule of law and respect for human rights. The first safeguard is to confine the new offences to using or publishing threatening words, as distinct from abusive or insulting words. That is not the case in respect of existing race hate offences, but it is necessary for religious hate offences, because the extension of that part of the Public Order Act reaches into matters of belief and practice, religious and otherwise, where it must be permissible—must it not?—to use abusive or insulting language in criticising religions and belief systems. By omitting "abusive and insulting words", we give effect to Mr Goggins's statement of intent, because we protect individuals from hatred and the fear of violence and harassment by forbidding the use of threatening language.
	The second safeguard is to require the prosecution to prove that the defendant had a specific criminal intent. As a general rule, every crime requires a mental element, the nature of which depends on the definition of the crime in question. The mental element required to constitute most serious crimes is an intention to bring about the elements of the crime in question. Such crimes can be committed only by intention and it is for the prosecution to prove the necessary criminal intent. That is not the position in respect of race hate crimes, where it is for the defence to prove the absence of criminal intent but, because of the potential adverse impact on freedom of expression, including the chilling effects of the new offences in encouraging self-censorship, and because the offences are so serious as to be punishable by seven years imprisonment, we believe that the normal rules should apply and that it should be for the prosecution to prove the necessary criminal intent.
	In the Minister's detailed letter, which, as I said, I saw only just before coming into the Chamber, there is the most extraordinary statement on the last page, which makes matters much worse. It is a deeply reactionary view of the criminal law. The letter states:
	"Our current view is that the likely limb"—
	that is, the limb that says that you do not have to prove criminal intent—
	"is needed because when it comes to something as serious as stirring up hatred, people should be held to account for the effects of their conduct".
	I remember once, as a special adviser to Roy Jenkins in the Home Office, saying that, in relation to rape, one should not have to prove intent. The Home Office officials said to the Home Secretary—and they were right—"Mr Lester is a deeply reactionary adviser in advocating anything of the kind". I never thought I would see, on the face of a letter written probably 35 or 40 years later, the same thing coming out of the criminal justice wing of the Home Office. It is a deeply reactionary view to say that one does not have to prove specific intent because wrongdoers should be brought to account without having to show that.
	The Minister may say that the Government have simply extended the scheme of racial incitement to cover religious incitement and that they wish for consistency, but they cannot say that because the Home Office has already recognised, in introducing the concept of religious harassment in Part 2 of the Equality Bill, that concerns for free speech considerations require them to apply the civil law differently when tackling religious as distinct from racial harassment. They have left out the religious harassment provisions from the goods and services provisions, even though the race equivalent is included.
	I submit that it is even more necessary to treat religion differently from ethnicity when one creates new speech crimes of a political nature. The first safeguard is of the fundamental right to freedom of expression. We may perhaps be assured by the Minister in her reply that the Human Rights Act and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights sufficiently protect free speech without the need for our amendment or that it is sufficient to include a reference to Article 10 or a reference to the importance of free speech—rather softer than our proposal. But that would not suffice. It would not suffice because it would not deal with the chilling effects that such broad and vague offences would have on freedom of speech, discussion, debate and the free flow of opinions and information in whatever form. It is essential to write the stated intention of Home Office Ministers into the Bill so that the Bill is reasonably certain and proportionate, making the least sacrifice of freedom of expression needed to meet the Government's aims.
	We hope that the Government and the House will commend this approach by supporting the amendments. If they are approved, we also hope that there will then be urgent consultation with the Government about further improvements that may be made in the remaining stages before the Bill returns to the other place. By approving the amendments today, we shall establish the framework for discussion, including each of the three safeguards. We hope that the Minister will be able to tell the House in her reply specifically that the Government accept that these safeguards are necessary even if they might wish to express them somewhat differently after taking the advice of the admirable parliamentary counsel.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: I wish to say two things as a member of the Labour Party, as I have been since the age of 17—technically that was illegal because one was not supposed to join until one was 18—and as a Member of this House since 1977. I support the sentiments of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and I shall explain why. I also wish to explain why, if he forces the matter to a Division today, as I hope he does, I shall not be able to vote this time in the Contents Lobby.
	Before that I have two points to make. First, it has been said to me by many of those who have joined us recently that there is a convention not to have Divisions in Committee. I know of no such convention and I know of no such custom. It is a habit that in the past three years has been indulged in and it does not apply in any way to what noble Lords each choose to do. I say "each" because this is an important debate which raises matters of conscience and deep attitudes to other human beings.
	Secondly—I can assure the Committee that I make no point ad hominem in this respect—if noble Lords look at the Companion, as I am sure they do each night, at paragraph 4.29 on page 60 they will see that it reads as follows. I must read it all or I shall be accused of selection:
	"The House has resolved that the reading of speeches is 'alien to the custom of the House and injurious to the traditional conduct of its debates'. It is acknowledged, however, that on some occasions, for example ministerial statements, it is necessary to read from a prepared text. In practice, some speakers may wish to have 'extended notes' from which to speak, but it is not in the interests of good debate that they should follow them closely".
	Only over the past few years has that provision in the Companion been rather ignored. I put it to your Lordships because it is necessary to do so and because we are in Committee on the Bill, which needs to be debated. Of course, from time to time we all sin against the Companion. On another occasion I shall outline my own sins, but not tonight. When I first came to this place in 1977, I was sat down for an hour by the much-loved Chief Whip of the day, Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe. She explained that so long as I read the Companion from time to time, things would go well. Indeed, when we observe its provisions, this self-regulating House proves every time that it does not need further instruction from someone sitting on high. While that issue must be left for another day, I say simply that the Companion to the Standing Orders and Guide to the Proceedings of the House of Lords, laid by the Clerks on the Table, to our great benefit, deserves more recognition than it has had over the past two to three years.
	I come to the questions raised by the Committee. I support the sentiments expressed in the amendments and I shall set out in headline three or four reasons why. I shall do so because I spoke at Second Reading and the Committee is not the place in which to repeat one's Second Reading speech. But before I do so, let me say that however reformed we become, we do not have the legitimacy of the elected Chamber down the Corridor. That must always be kept in our minds. Different arrangements, customs and procedures apply here because of the importance of the democratic Chamber. But Amendment No. 1 and its allied amendments, moved and spoken to so persuasively by the two noble Lords who have already spoken, answer many of the questions that people like myself and my comrades who have chosen to attend the debate today feel must be answered before we could even think of approving of the Bill as it stands. Currently it is a bad Bill and the Government should reconsider it. As I have said, I shall give merely the headline reasons for why I say that.
	I stress that my position is a matter of conscience, and I believe that that conscience is shared by many of my colleagues on these Benches. First, there is the question of separation. The amendments rightly separate the issues of incitement to hatred on racial grounds and incitement to hatred on the grounds of religious belief or lack of religion. Merely to state that makes all the difference. It would be ludicrous to have a provision talking about incitement to hatred by reason of a lack of racial ethnicity or the like.
	I am all in favour of keeping in place the provisions of the 1986 Act, which I am sure that Members of the Committee have looked at and which would be amended by this Bill. That Act is available in the Library. I am all in favour of keeping in place a very strong law on incitement to racial hatred. It is an abomination. I take this opportunity to say that, as a secular humanist, I am sure the Committee shares in my disgust at the abominable racist attack recently perpetrated against the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, whom we are soon to welcome into this Chamber. It was a vile attack and it is quite right to maintain an extreme criminal penalty against such behaviour.
	My second point is that the Bill goes much further than some people think. As it stands, the Bill goes far beyond incitement to hatred on religious grounds. Incitement involves intention, and the amendments are right on that point. Incitement is about intending something whereas, as I said at Second Reading—I merely repeat the main point—the Bill extends to insulting words that might be understood by any person, whether reasonable or not—one is tempted to say whether sane or not—to be a criminal liability. I will vote and vote again against such criminal liability being introduced into our law.
	I have other criticisms, of course. The Bill refers—as does the 1986 Act—to the "stirring up" of religious and racial hatred. I do not like the phrase "stirring up". In the words of Polonius, it is
	"an ill phrase, a vile phrase".
	I would prefer that it went, but I can live with it if the liability is reduced to incitement.
	This leads me to my third point, which is that protection against incitement to religious hatred is what we promised. Everyone on these Benches is committed by the election manifesto to introduce legislation on incitement to religious hatred. We did not say that we were going to introduce legislation which made you liable criminally if you said something which might be understood by any person, no matter who they were, to contain grounds for religious hatred.
	These amendments fulfil the Labour Party manifesto in a manner which is strictly correct. The Bill goes much further—it is an extreme Bill—and that is why the Government have lost the argument in both Houses so far. As noble Lords will know if they read the debate, brave comrades in the other place made a staggeringly good case against the Bill on that ground. Our manifesto commitment states:
	"It remains our firm and clear intention to give people of all faiths the same protection against incitement to hatred on the basis of their religion".
	Incitement requires intention to incite. It is perfectly easy for the prosecution to prove it—although some people may say, "It is terribly difficult to do so"—because that is what lawyers are paid for.
	We should not legislate for this vast area of criminal liability as it stands in the Bill. People everywhere—from actors to commentators to Muslims of my acquaintance—regard it as quite extraordinary that the Government should introduce a Bill with this width of criminal liability. No doubt some noble Lords will say such people are all middle class and intellectuals. Maybe they are, but it does not alter the fact that some Muslim circles are not pleased with the extent of the Bill.
	Whether knowingly or not, Ministers, the Mayor of London and various other people have inaccurately sold the Bill as though it deals with incitement to religious hatred and no more. But it goes much further than that, and that is why the paper in the Library, giving a Keeling schedule of how it would read if inserted into the 1986 Act, is so important. I hope noble Lords have read that and will not mistake the effect that the Bill would have over a very wide area.
	Finally, merely as a comment, I have not received the paper from the noble Baroness or my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, to whom I wrote, but of course it is right that there are problems about human rights. You do not have to be an expert—you do not need lawyers in these matters—because all noble Lords can read the European Convention on Human Rights. If they do not then see the problem, I suggest they read it again.
	I urge the Ministers to look favourably on the amendments. There are those of us who cannot vote in conscience for the Bill as it stands and those who will not vote against the Whip tonight. It is much to my regret that this is a matter for the Whips; it should not be. It is a fundamental issue of human decency, standards and human rights.
	The reasons why I cannot vote for the amendments are these. If we pass the amendments—I am sure that they will be passed, if put to a Division, and I hope that the mover has the courage to do so—the complaint will be made in another place that that creates a different Bill, and that it is not right to make such a vast amendment to the Bill—I am doing my best to make a case I do not believe in—at one blow. That is important. This is a revising Chamber, and it may be that making such a vast amendment to the Bill in Committee might be criticised as showing a lack of manners towards the other place. We must somehow ease the Bill's passage from error into light by the gradual pressure of our arguments and by having the Government look at it again.
	There is a Minister who has shown what brave and courageous Ministers can do—someone with whom I have often disagreed—the right honourable Member for Hull West and Hessle, Mr Alan Johnson. He was given a brief to settle the pensions problems in the public sector, to save £13 million, if I apprehend rightly, and avoid a strike. He triumphed in doing so, because he was a bold Minister. Ministers here should go back to whomever they speak to and say, "You really must confine this Bill to our manifesto commitment".
	Everyone knows that the Bill goes further. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State is a talented product of King's College, Cambridge, someone than whom you could hope for no better in this discussion. He knows perfectly well that the Bill goes beyond incitement and that there are problems concerning freedom of speech. I do not need to repeat them in Committee, because I assume that noble Lords will have read the debates here and in the other place.
	The Government must be asked to revise this and to come back to the Chamber with a Bill that is confined to incitement to racial hatred, which is what the manifesto promised. For their part, having been around the track so many times, the Government now face the fact that they cannot get their Bill through as it stands, except by heavy whipping. That is most unfortunate. It is no way to put this Bill on the statute book. I want the Government to come back on Report, for those of us on these Benches who will not vote tonight, much though I welcome an expression of the House's view, for those who are not under a Whip on the matter.
	For that reason, although you may want a constitutional crisis about something else, it would be the nonsense of all time to have one about this Bill. When the Minister comes to answer, I hope that she will take account of such a view from her own Benches, not through some antique disposition on a struggle more worthy of the 17th century before the Glorious Revolution, but as a practical matter of how the Government might proceed.
	I wrote to my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor but have not had a reply. I sent a copy to the Minister, but I quite understand why she has not replied. She has been in all sorts of difficulties in the past few weeks, and we are happy to see her return safely to the Chamber.
	When the Government come to answer, please will they offer talks? They cannot just go on for ever taking the people behind them for granted. They have discussed it with the Tories; they have discussed it with the Liberals; I should like a bit of discussion now and then, as would a lot of my noble comrades. The Government must discuss confining the Bill, as the amendments would, to the manifesto commitment.
	I spoke early in the debate because, having been here for 29 years, I thought that for once I could intervene early and explain a decision that is not merely personal to myself but is shared by many of my friends on these Benches.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I thank my noble friend for drawing the attention of the Whips certainly not to the content of his speech but to the advice in the Companion on timing for interventions. If everyone who feels passionately on either side speaks at great length, beyond the guidance in the Companion, we may have a problem.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I shall keep well within the constraints of the Companion. I wish to make one point, in supplement to the extremely able and eloquent case advanced by the two noble Lords whose names are on the amendment.
	I speak about the possible chilling effect of the legislation. Sympathetic though I am in some respects to the intentions behind the proposed new law, I believe that it could easily have a rebound effect and create more resentment than enlightenment on the part of the public. I shall add just this: we in this House and in the other place have legislated a deluge of new law over the past few years, including 14,000 pages last year. Without question, there is in the country a combination of bemusement and resentment about the quantity and complexity of that law.
	I shall detain noble Lords with one short example of how new law can be seriously misconstrued and in the process create antipathies that it certainly was not intended to create. My daughter has just enrolled her two and a half year-old son in a nursery, where she was asked to sign a disclaimer against what she was told was the current law of the land, which will allow those who run the nursery to pick up the two and a half year-old if he falls down and hurts himself. Without that signature and that disclaimer, the staff of the nursery maintained that they would be acting unlawfully. In fact, they are wrong—but I put it to you that this new law is a classic of the sort that will be misrepresented in the public bars the length and breadth of England. Far from achieving the meritorious purposes behind it, it will stand in danger of achieving a chilling effect that will in turn create resentments that currently do not exist, exacerbate tensions that do exist and hence, in toto, be counter-productive.

Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: I do not deny that the Bill has a good purpose, but I should feel much happier if the amendments spoken to so eloquently by the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Lester, were carried. The sort of thing that I wish to be able to say, or to quote, is a remark made some nine centuries ago by Frederick II, stupor mundi, by most estimates the most intelligent Holy Roman Emperor, at least of the Middle Ages. He said:
	"We are, I fear, at the mercy of three impostors: Moses, Christ and Mohammed".
	I wish to be able to say that, even if I do not agree with it and even if I do not recognise or acknowledge the source. For that reason, I support with enthusiasm the amendments that have been proposed.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: I am a little perplexed, because I am used to Committee stages with to-ing and fro-ing, interruptions and questions being asked—so this comes amiss to me. I accept the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, and I shall read the Companion regularly each night from now on; I am sure that my sleep will be better as a result. I should love to have intervened during the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, but my colleagues tell me that that is not done in this place. It would be a much better debate if—

The Earl of Onslow: I intervene to tell the noble Lord that it would be perfectly all right.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: I thank the noble Lord. What a great fellow he is. I shall see him in the bar afterwards and reward him.
	It seems that the people who are motivated to get up—although we do not catch the Speaker's eye—are those who disagree with the Government. I can understand that, because everyone assumes that the Government are pushing the Bill on and the only way we can stop them is for all of us who are against it to get up and say so. I think that all of those who think that the Government are right ought to say so more often, not just on this Bill but at Question Time and other occasions. The Government are not always wrong. They are very often right, and we should say so.
	I found it strange when the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, said today that the Government had brought party politics into something like this. The noble Baroness with the lovely Irish name—I was going to say, "the lovely Baroness with the Irish name"—which I promise to learn to pronounce, mentioned party politics. Well, of course party politics comes into all this. We are pulling wool over our eyes if we do not accept that.
	A number of people have said that legislation does not change minds, so why should we bother? Legislation changes the framework in which we work. It can make sure that the kind of appalling things that happen—they do happen—involving incitement to religious hatred are less likely to.
	Then we have had a number of statements—again and again, today and at Second Reading—such as that made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, who said that Christians demonstrating outside were looking for assurances that they could preach the gospel. There is nothing in the Bill that will stop people preaching the gospel. The noble Lord, Lord Peston, said that it would reduce freedom of expression, and that was said again today. People can keep on asserting that the Bill will do that, but there is nothing in it that will. It is a misunderstanding of the Bill.
	I will give you a clue as to why people are misunderstanding it. I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, is here, because again and again people have referred to the legislation in Australia as if it was exactly the same as the legislation that we are considering. It is not. In Australia, the legislation says that it outlaws activities that lead to serious contempt towards or ridicule of a religious group. We are not talking about ridicule. If we did have "ridicule" in the Bill, Rowan Atkinson would be right. It is not in the Bill, however.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: I am grateful to my noble friend. We will get back to a little more of what he likes. I happen to have made a certain study of the Australian legislation in the state of Victoria. Will my noble friend accept that those who do not particularly like the exact formula of the legislation have concluded that legislation of this kind is the sort of thing that small groups of religious zealots, of all kinds, have been waiting for in order to stop arguing among themselves and start litigating? That is the problem.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: I understand that, but in Victoria it was a religious vilification law. We are talking about incitement to hatred. "Hatred" is very strong, and incitement is a specific action, which is also very strong.

Lord Mackay of Clashfern: Does the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, agree with the view that intent to carry out the activity is necessary in his definition of "incitement"?

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: I do. That is a key point of the amendment. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, for giving me the opportunity to say that there is a lot of merit in the amendment. When it was proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, however, we got all the arguments of two weeks ago—all sorts of arguments—recycled, instead of going into the specifics of "intent". We should look at that.
	I will of course support the Government today. We will have many opportunities—on Report and Third Reading and when it goes back to the House of Commons—for the Government to consider the amendment. I hope that, given time, they will do that. However, I also think that we have to answer some of the points that have been made. I feel strongly about one point. People say that religion is a matter of choice and race is not. Of course that is true; I do not argue about that. However, that implies that if someone is inciting hatred against you because of your religion you have the option of withdrawing from that religion. That is the implication of what is being said, and I think that people ought to understand that. There is also a contradiction in the whole argument whereby some people say that the legislation is unnecessary, but the same people say that it inhibits freedom of speech. This is the third time that we have considered this legislation.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: The fourth.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: It is the fourth. Different arguments were put against it previously. The Government are getting nearer and nearer to exactly what they ought to be doing, and they deserve our support tonight.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has underlined the fact that we have discussed this proposal four times. I make no apology for intervening in the debate, because—like the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn—I feel an attack of conscience coming on. But my conscience tells me that the Government are right and that my party is wrong. I feel that I have to explain why; otherwise people might think that I was simply being frivolous in opposing my party just for some trivial purpose.
	I believe that the enactment of a law on incitement to religious hatred is vital and I would ask your Lordships who disagree with that proposition to look at what was said before the Select Committee on Religious Offences. I am dismayed that neither on Second Reading nor on this occasion nor any other time that this matter has been looked at recently has anyone bothered to refer to the Select Committee. It is as though it never existed, and yet the matter was thoroughly canvassed there. We had evidence from the police, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney-General showing why a law of this sort was necessary. I would refer your Lordships in particular to what was said by the police about the riots in Bolton when the extreme right had very good legal advice and were distributing documents. I refer the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, to that. I hope that he has had a chance to look at what was said and to look at the pictures of the documents which were displayed in the Select Committee's report. There is no doubt that this is a way in which the extreme right is escaping from the consequences of the existing law on incitement to racial hatred, by disguising itself as attacking its victims because of their religious beliefs. Therefore it is necessary, vitally necessary, that we should have this legislation.
	When the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, says he believes that the legislation will inhibit freedom of speech—we have heard a lot of that this afternoon, as we did the other day—he is talking rubbish. This Bill does not override the Human Rights Act. A much better lawyer than I am—the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, who is the chair of the Select Committee—guided our committee into pointing out that what we are looking at here is a very narrow range of conduct. It is no good the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, shaking his head. This was one of the few matters on which the Select Committee was agreed. On the one hand we have Article 10 of the Human Rights Act: it circumscribes this offence because nothing which is permissible under the Human Rights Act would be an offence under this Bill. On the other side we have the law on incitement, both the common law which makes it a criminal offence to incite someone to commit a criminal offence, and then a variety of statute law such as the Offences Against the Person Act 1860, which was in fact recently used in a very interesting case which I have mentioned before. It was the case of a preacher who incited his congregation to go out and kill Jews, Hindus and Americans. The preacher made the mistake of recording his sermons—if you can call them that—and sold them outside the mosque, so the Special Branch was able to buy copies and use them for the prosecution. The interesting thing about that case was that the man got seven years under the Offences Against the Person Act, but was given an additional two years for incitement to racial hatred. Your Lordships will appreciate that if he had chosen other groups to attack, and had said Christians rather than Jews, the extra two years could not have been awarded by the court. That illustrates how stupid the law is.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: As the noble Lord has mentioned me twice, I hope that he will not feel aggrieved if I ask him a question. I feel aggrieved to be on the opposite side of anything that the noble Lord says. I have never known an occasion when we disagreed on such matters.
	I have had a quick look at the matters to which the noble Lord referred me—I had them in my notes and did not mention them, but of course they are important—but the examples and discussions that took place in the Committee on Religious Offences were in toto about incitement. We do not need a new law to make people liable for inciting people to kill others. To that extent the law covers it.
	The issue is about incitement. Does the noble Lord agree that if a Bill is introduced to make incitement to something a crime, it is about intentional acts? People on the far right know very well what they are doing. The Bill goes so far beyond incitement, and that is what people are worried about. The amendment reduces the scope of the Bill to intentional incitement.

Lord Avebury: I do not understand the noble Lord's argument as the Bill is about incitement. That is what we talked about in the Select Committee. On the issue of the Bill going far beyond incitement, and the remarks made by other noble Lords about there being no intent in the proposal, I wonder what they have been reading. The intent is already in the Public Order Act. One need only get a copy from the Library, or read the schedule that has been kindly provided by the Government to see that in every section—

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: Perhaps I may—

Lord Avebury: We have been told by the Chief Whip that she does not want long speeches, and I have already been on my feet for far too long. I do not want to trespass on the patience of the Committee, and I have only one more thing to say, which is about intent.
	Section 18(5) of the Public Order Act refers to:
	"A person who is not shown to have intended to stir up racial or religious hatred".
	Nobody has argued that the phrase is wrong in relation to incitement to racial hatred clauses; everyone says that they welcome it and have loved it all along—ever since the 1976 Act. If they think we are wrong about intent, we are also wrong about intent on incitement to racial hatred. Even though some of those who have taken part in today's debate and on Second Reading are distinguished lawyers, I can only believe that they have not done their homework. They should read the Public Order Act again and look at the key new schedule. They will see that there is intent, which is the safeguard that they want.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: Before the noble Lord sits down, to say that one has not done one's homework is a very grave charge. The noble Lord cites Section 18(5) of the 1986 Act. I have it here. He stresses that time is short, so I shall not read it to your Lordships. His summary of subsection (5) was wrong in law. It says that if you did not intend to do it you are not liable only if you are not aware that it might be regarded by some person as threatening, insulting, or the like. I hope that the noble Lord accepts that his law is wrong.

Lord Avebury: The noble Lord is wrong—

Lord Lyell of Markyate: I support—

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: It really will assist the due process of House procedure if we do not have "dualogues" during the debate. My noble friend chose his own words for his speech at the beginning of the debate. That allows one to say things first, but, unfortunately, it allows others to speak afterwards. I am not the Chief Whip; I am not seeking to curtail debate; I am not seeking to influence the content of debate. But noble Lords should be aware there is body language from other parts of the House that is expressing some concern.

Lord Avebury: I would not rise again if it were not for the fact that the noble Lord said that I was wrong. He is wrong.

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Avebury: It is not a question of simply being "not aware". Perhaps I may read the words that come before that. They state:
	"if he did not intend, his words or behaviour, or the written material, to be, and was not aware that it might be, threatening, abusive or insulting".

Lord Lyell of Markyate: I intend to speak briefly in support of these amendments, because they are not wrecking amendments—which some noble Lords seem to believe—they are properly focused. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and my noble friend Lord Hunt on a helpful amendment, because at least it can be read as a whole. It is a matter for the Government how to amend the Bill, if they are willing to, but to fillet out religious hatred from racial hatred and to recognise their important distinctions is very valuable.
	The first important distinction is that the first requirement of the Bill should be that a citizen should be guilty of the offence of stirring up hatred on religious grounds only if he or she actually intends to stir up religious hatred. It will not be difficult to recognise those far-right activities to which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, objected. They will be well and truly caught by the amendment. What will not be caught, nor should be caught, is the much vaguer concept as to whether something is "likely" to stir up racial hatred. That is too vague. The evil people whom the Bill rightly seeks to catch are people who intend to stir up racial hatred and usually there is not the slightest doubt that that is their intention, and British juries will find it perfectly easy to recognise them and convict them.
	The second reason that I strongly support the amendment is that it tackles, in paragraph 29J of the amendment, the need to protect both freedom of speech and freedom of religion. It expressly states that, "discussion, criticism" and even,
	"dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents",
	are expressly permitted, provided that one is not "intending", to the satisfaction of the jury and the court, to stir up racial hatred. Furthermore, "proselytising", for one's own religion, and urging others to turn away from their religion is also expressly permitted. That is what the preaching of the Gospel and the contents of many sermons rightly seek to do. They usually do it in measured language in circumstances where no one would dream of bringing a prosecution—but occasionally the language may become more inflammatory and we do not want the chilling effect on public discussion, whether from the pulpit or in the bar or anywhere else, of an excessive Bill.
	Although the amendments might seem sweeping in some ways, they focus on those two points: intention, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The Government can have their Bill. They will be able to prosecute correctly those who genuinely intend in an evil way and in a threatening manner to stir up religious hatred, but the amendments will not catch what we wish to avoid them catching and I strongly recommend them to the Committee.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: I support the amendment and I strongly agree with the sentiments expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, when he reminded us that the purpose of the amendment was to deal with the question of intention or incitement. The whole Chamber should recognise that a valuable and helpful attempt has been made by the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Hunt of Wirral, in laying this new framework before us. It will provide a new framework should the amendment be agreed. There is sense, therefore, in having a Division in Committee. We were rightly reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, that we are entitled to do so if we wish although in recent years it has not always been our practice. If we are to put a new framework for the Bill in place, now is the time to do so. If it needs to be changed in ways such as those outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who made his usual thoughtful, consistent contribution on this issue, we shall be free to do so on Report. There is merit, therefore, in reaching today a conclusion on the amendment.
	There are good reasons for agreeing the amendment, not least because at Second Reading many noble Lords expressed the wish that the Bill had not been brought forward. We have to recognise some of the realities expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and others that because it is a manifesto commitment the Government clearly will see the Bill on to the statute book. Therefore, we have to recognise that there will be legislation and we have to do what we can to make it workable.
	That is the spirit that the noble Baroness adopted—we are pleased to see her back in her usual place—in the letter circulated to Members of the House earlier today. We have already received at least one briefing note contesting four of the points in the letter. I shall happily let the Minister have sight of that note if she has not seen it. Nevertheless, I recognise in the final paragraph of the Minister's letter a willingness to continue in discussion and dialogue with those who are willing to seek to make it a better Bill and to achieve the purpose for which the Government say it is intended.
	Anyone who followed the events in Burnley mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, or those in Birmingham this weekend, knows that there are deep issues of alienation which we have to address. However, many of us believe that the Bill may be the wrong remedy and that legislation is not the way forward. I was struck by the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool—he is in his seat—in an article published on 24 October. He said that neighbourliness between religions is the soil in which our society can grow into the future. He set out reasons why such a constructive approach between the denominations and religions is the way forward, breeding a climate of tolerance rather than legislation.
	I was also struck by a letter I received since Second Reading from the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Safer Neighbourhoods Multi-Faith Forum, Dr Stuart Burgess. He said:
	"It is the case that faith communities hold divergent views and there are circumstances in which these differences are aired even in situations where this may be seen or heard by members of other faith communities. However, there is a need to maintain a clear distinction between debate founded on mutual respect and the expression of hostile views with the requisite intent to cause offence or generate hatred. It is the view of this forum that the legislation as it appears in its current form fails to maintain this distinction".
	The noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Lester, seek to draw again that distinction through the amendments. My fear is that vexatious litigation will be generated by the legislation. The noble Lords, Lord Foulkes and Lord Wedderburn, mentioned the situation in Australia. There is a purely vexatious case before the courts in Australia on not identical but similar legislation. They have taken to court clergymen in Australia who have been running the Alpha course which is comparable to courses being run throughout this country.

Baroness Whitaker: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. Is it not the case that in the Australian legislation no permission is required by the equivalent of the Attorney-General?

Lord Alton of Liverpool: I accept the noble Baroness's point. I said in my preliminary remarks that there is a difference. However, my key point is that legislation has generated vexatious actions. Such legislation will be inciteful: it will generate from different groups complaints against other groups. It will create sectarianism where perhaps none existed hitherto. That is the real danger of this kind of legislation.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: Does the noble Lord not agree that, whereas the Attorney-General can stop prosecutions, he cannot do anything about stopping civil actions, which have also burst out in Australia?

Lord Alton of Liverpool: The Committee will also want to take that issue into account as it considers how we should proceed. I have said enough. I think that this is a good amendment. It honours the commitment that many entered into at Second Reading to try to find a way forward, recognising the political realities that pertain. I hope that even if the Government resist the amendment today, they will enter into the dialogue offered earlier by the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Hunt.

Lord Clinton-Davis: I think that, in many ways, the Government have offered the Committee a laudable Bill, but I share the view expressed by many that this is not the right approach. I speak as someone who has seen how the fascists operate, and we are playing into their hands.
	I can make a very brief contribution to the debate. This House should ensure that good law is passed, but I cannot come to the view that at present this Bill is good law. Intentions are irrelevant. We must decide whether the law should be as stated by the Government, and I am afraid I do not think that it should.
	The criticism broached tonight is not, in my view, party political. There is a division of views on whether the Bill will intensify or subtract from the deeply difficult situation that we face. I disagree with the noble Lord who has just spoken. I think that the Government should be given a further chance to think about this matter. What has been presented to the Committee today should certainly not be the last word. But if the advice that has just been given is followed, this House will get itself into real difficulty.
	Therefore, in my view, the Government should be given an opportunity to think again about what has been said. That involves perusing the speeches that have been made, the intention behind them and what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, with whom I usually agree a great deal. That is vitally important as well. I do not happen to agree with it but I think that it should be taken into account. It is vitally important that we should be able to think again on Report, but we should give the Government, perhaps with our help, the chance to come to their own conclusions in the interim.

The Earl of Onslow: If the Government are going to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, then I suggest that we do not press the amendment. If they say, "Yes, it is flawed"—which most people are saying it is—"We will take it away and introduce a lot of amendments more or less along these lines on Report", then I think we should give the Government the chance to do that. If, however—I have a terrible feeling that this will be the alternative—they are going to dig their heels in like the shield wall at Thermopylae and say, "They shall not pass" (mixed metaphors and battles), then I think that we should press the amendment because, as my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell said, unless it is in the Bill, it cannot be made better on Report.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: I wanted to say a briefer word to support the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis. This is a bad Bill. The Government should be given a chance to take it away and think again. It is difficult to improve a bad Bill with amendment. It can be done, but there is one aspect—I am giving only one—of the amendment that I could not possibly support. It was raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. It relates to the practicalities, the difficulties and the directions to the jury; the problems of enforcement. They are serious and they have not been truly debated or discussed.
	We do not want law that is not properly enforceable and we do not want to be rushed into it. If there is a Division I shall abstain, but what I do is of no importance to anyone. However, it is of some importance that the Government should be given another opportunity to take away a Bill that has been severely criticised by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern and by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester.

Lord Plant of Highfield: As one of the signatories to the amendments I would like to say a few words. I agree with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, said and I do not have much to add to the positive case for the amendments. He put it much better than I could have done. I am sure that the Government are entitled to a Bill on incitement to religious hatred. It was a manifesto commitment. But as we see already in the debate over the Bill to deal with tobacco smoking, there is more than one way to meet a manifesto commitment.
	The division that would emerge from these amendments between the racial hatred legislation and the religious hatred legislation would enable the Government to meet their aims more effectively than the present Bill. The other relevant factor is that we all have to accept, whether we support the Bill or not, that there is a great deal of confusion about what it entails. Many people say that it does not abridge or have a chilling effect on freedom of speech; other people think that it does. Part of that confusion is itself the result of the rather complicated statute that would emerge through merging the two pieces of legislation. It would be better and less confusing.
	It is curious that, according to Ministers and Government supporters, some of the brainiest lawyers in the House—I am not a lawyer; I have been called many things in my time, but not a lawyer—seem incapable of understanding the Bill. If that is true of such eminent lawyers, how much more evident is it going to be to people outside this House who are dealing with these matters at a less elevated level? There is a case for clarifying the nature of the Bill and the amendments would do a great deal to achieve that.

Lord Dubs: Will my noble friend help to clarify his Amendment No. 31? If it has already been done by one of the other signatories I apologise, because I had to slip out for a minute or two. In proposed new paragraph 29B in Amendment No. 31 it states clearly that there has to be an intention to stir up religious hatred. Sub-paragraph (3) states that,
	"A constable may arrest without warrant anyone he reasonably suspects is committing an offence".
	That seems a step much further than the general arguments in favour of the amendment. The amendment seems to say that a constable can decide whether there is an intent to stir up religious hatred and then can proceed to make an arrest. That is going a long way further than many of the arguments that the supporters of the amendment have made.

Baroness Whitaker: Before the noble Lord sits down—

Noble Lords: Order!

Lord Plant of Highfield: Can I come back to that in a moment because I want to make three more general points? The first is that the amendments would enable the Government to meet their aims more effectively. The second is to clarify the nature of the offences that the Bill will give rise to and I realise that my noble friend's question relates to that. However, I will make the third general point first. The Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I have the privilege of being a member, in both this and the previous Parliament, argued in the previous Parliament that the Bill is compatible with the Human Rights Act. I accept that. I was party to that decision, and I am not in any sense resiling from it. But the Human Rights Act does not specify that this is the best Bill that could be produced. There could be another Bill, or an amended Bill on incitement to religious hatred that would be better than the Bill that was found to be compatible with the Human Rights Act. I do not resile from the Committee's adjudication, as it were, at that stage, but I think that, for the reasons I have given, this would be a better way forward on the Bill.
	Three elements of the amendments are very important. The first is the point about intention that has been made many times this afternoon and which is agreed to, as I understand it, by my noble friend Lord Foulkes, who is not enamoured with the overall strategy of these amendments. It is extremely important, because if we are looking at effects rather than intentions, there is an almost an incentive for those who feel aggrieved by some public utterance to turn its hatefulness into harmfulness. There is an incentive there. We ought to be able to prove intention to make that point.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: I accepted the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, when he intervened, but subsequently the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, made the point that it has not been necessary to include intention in relation to racial hatred, so why should it be included in relation to religious hatred?

Lord Plant of Highfield: Because the point that I was making as my noble friend stood up arises. In the case of religious hatred there is a great deal more ambiguity about what is being said, what is being understood by what is being said and what is being read into what is being said. There is therefore an incentive for the person who claims to be disadvantaged or threatened by what has been said to over-exaggerate. I do not think that that degree of ambiguity is present in the case of racial hatred.
	It is important that in our amendments we have stuck with the idea of threatening language because that is much more objective than insulting language. Finally, we have a provision for—

Lord Avebury: For the record, what I actually said was that intent was present in both offences. It is in Section 19(5), of the Public Order Act 1986, for example, and all the other sections have an equivalent provision. Therefore, we were treating intent as a necessary ingredient in incitement to racial and to religious hatred.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: I think my noble friend is overlooking the fact that the burden on the prosecution to prove intent normally—

Lord Grocott: I do not think we can have interventions on interventions.

Lord Plant of Highfield: I have one final point to make regarding the protection of freedom of expression. Noble friends around me are assuring the Committee that there is no problem here. If there is none, I cannot see why it should not be in the Bill—and if there is no problem, why do so many people think that there is? That is due to confusion about the nature of the Bill, which would be sorted out by the amendments.
	On my noble friend's point about the constable, I assume—with all due deference to other colleagues on the Committee, for I am not a lawyer—that the constable may arrest without warrant anyone who, he reasonably suspects, is committing it. "Reasonable suspicion" would include suspecting the intention of the person.

Baroness O'Cathain: I want to make one brief point. There seems to be a big problem with the Bill, as I have said on several occasions. There is a problem also with the Bill outside, which nobody has mentioned this time. We have had protests and newspaper articles; our postbags prove it. At Second Reading, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said:
	"it will not stop the telling of jokes about religion or the ridiculing of faith. It will not close down debate about religious beliefs or stop artists from dealing with religious subjects".—[Official Report, 11/10/05; col. 163.].
	Although he clearly believes that to be true, it is not written into the Bill. Surely the Government therefore cannot object to an amendment that would put it beyond doubt.

Lord Parekh: I happen to be one of those on these Benches who have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I feel extremely sympathetic to the Bill. However, realising that the Bill contains deep ambiguities, I am also sympathetic to the amendment tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Wirral and Lord Lester of Herne Hill.
	I support the Bill for a variety of reasons. People have talked freely about the Australian legislation; they tend to forget that India has had similar legislation, which has been fairly successful in spite of occasional hiccups. I also recall that a similar debate took place in 1976 or thereabouts, when we were discussing the Race Relations Act and whether there should be incitement to racial hatred. The same kinds of arguments, about the chilling effect and so on were made. Happily, we know that those arguments have turned out to be wrong.
	I also welcome the Bill for the simple reason that we cannot have a society in which people are at liberty to provoke or incite hatred against a group of their fellow citizens, especially those who are weak, marginal and vulnerable. We simply cannot sustain a spirit of common belonging if incitement to hatred is a common practice. Although not a lawyer myself—I am certainly open to criticism and direction here—I also support the Bill because I have often thought that it all depends on how "intention" is meant. In matters as important as inciting hatred of one kind or another, intention, in the sense of deliberately wanting to do something, is not crucial. If, for example, I were to shout "Fire!" in a theatre, as a result of which a few people died, it would be no defence on my part to say that I did not intend that. I can think of countless situations where I might do something without intending its consequences, and yet the consequences might materialise. If they were so significant as to involve life and liberty, I might rightly be held culpable.
	I should have thought that if "intention"—I do not know how the lawyers use the term; I speak as a philosopher for a minute—is understood in the sense of deliberately wanting something to happen, then, of course, it is not crucial. It is enough if I could have anticipated the consequences of my action, or if it is something that I could have foreseen with reasonable care.
	For those and other reasons, I am prepared to support the Bill. However, I have two reservations. First—I understand that this is against the advice given to the Government by people whom they consulted—the term "religious hatred" is deeply ambiguous. It is unlike the term "racial hatred", which simply means inciting hatred of a particular racial group. By contrast, "religious hatred" will mean inciting hatred of a body of beliefs, a religion, or of a religious group. Given the ambiguity of the term "religious hatred", which makes it asymmetrical with racial hatred, I wish that the Bill had not used it. It should have been called "hatred of a religious group".
	There is also the danger, given that so many able lawyers disagree, that there is a deep ambiguity in the Bill and that those who are in charge of implementing it are likely to be confused—as are those who are likely to be affected by it—about what is forbidden and what is not. Given that, I very much hope that we will give a fair wind to the amendments, because they are not wrecking amendments. They are designed to clarify and, in places, to rectify some of the ambiguities and puzzles of the Bill.

Lord Barnett: First, I confess that I have not read our manifesto. Indeed, I am not sure that I read many of them, even when I finished up in government. Like my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis, I have had some experience and hate racial and religious hatred terribly—like, I am sure, everyone on the Committee—but I have great worries about the Bill.
	I understand that we do not usually vote on Second Readings, but I hope that we will give the Government time to think again. I would be prepared to do that if my noble friend, for whom I have great regard, tells us that the Government are genuinely proposing to think again. If I do not get that assurance, I would certainly be prepared to vote for these sensible amendments, and I hope that they would be carried. The Government could still then think again. That is an important consideration and it is why, unless I get that offer of serious consideration from my noble friend—to whom I offer my sympathies for what happened recently—I am sorry to say, I will have to vote against the Government.

Lord Mackay of Clashfern: The proposal that, if the Government are willing genuinely to think again, the amendments may not be pressed is reasonable. On the other hand, we await the response of the noble Baroness. I am delighted that she is able to be back with us again.
	First, there is absolutely no doubt that the Bill is not dependent only on intention. The Home Secretary was asked about that at Second Reading. At first, in reply to a question, he said that intent was crucial, but, when he was taken up on the matter a little later, he pointed out that there was an additional provision in the Bill that did not require intention. Therefore, in my view, it is not strictly speaking an incitement to religious hatred. The amendments would create that.
	One difficulty about how the Bill is constructed is that Ministers have said to me and to others that the Bill is about protecting believers, not belief. The problem is that if you insult my beliefs and I am a real believer, you insult me thereby. It is difficult to make that distinction in relation to insult or abuse. It is much easier to make it in relation to threatening language. That is why the word "threatening" is the centrepiece of the amendment.
	The Home Office has kindly sent out indications about the guidance that would be given on the Bill if enacted. In reference to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, last time, I notice that the Home Office memorandum states that consultation will be carried out about guidance and so on. It says that among the people who will be consulted are bodies representing the main faith communities. Involved here are communities other than the main faith communities—those who are interested can see how the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, described them at Second Reading but I shall not repeat that now. We must remember that people have all kinds of religious beliefs. There is an important religious belief that no less an authority than the Prime Minister described as a perversion of Islam. Is it intended to cover and give the protection of the criminal law to that, if the Bill becomes law? If not, why not?

Lord Peston: I am loath to intervene because I want to hear what the Minister has to say, but I have a couple of points to make. I hope that Members of the Committee do not think that I am a creep, but I say to my noble friend Lord Foulkes that I like the way we conduct ourselves in this House. We do not shout at each other; we take it in turn to speak; and, believe it or not, we listen to each other. My basis for comparison is not the other place, about which I know nothing, but academic life, which is very different.
	I want to echo three or four points that have been made. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alton. I wish that we had never had this Bill in the first place, but we have it and, therefore, our duty as a revising chamber is to revise it and improve it. There is no doubt about that. I also find it hard to see this matter as party political. I cannot see the connection between this and being a true member of the Labour Party. I have been a member for a long time so, to me, opposing the Bill is not attacking the Labour Party in any way, but that is by the way.
	Of the utmost importance is the fact that, for me as a layman, the Bill, which I have great difficulty following in its original form, would become something that I can understand with the amendments. When the amendments are added, I can follow the line of reasoning, which I could not when I first read the Bill. It seems to me that there are only two possibilities: one is that the Bill says what the amendments say, in which case the Government should accept the amendments because it is important that some of us should be able to understand the Bill; alternatively, the Bill does not say what the amendments say, in which case the Government should make the amendments, because the Bill should say what the amendments say.
	My final point is on procedure, and here I am very much with the noble Lords, Lord Clinton-Davis and Lord Barnett. Whether it is a convention, new or old, it seems to me, particularly on a matter of such importance, that the Government should be given a chance to think again. That should be the case when we argue on anything, but certainly on a matter as important as this. If the Minister says that she has listened to the arguments, she really must think again and come back to us. If she does that, the Committee will be satisfied. If the Minister simply says at the end of her speech, "No way"—perhaps the Committee will forgive the vernacular—we might as well get the voting over and done with now, as it will put us all out of our misery. This may be the introduction that my noble friend wants, and I very much look forward to hearing her response.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I have tried to resist the temptation to rise too early because I know that this debate is extremely important and I wanted the benefit of listening to it. I do not stand before the Committee saying that there is no possibility of change whatever. I shall explain the Government's position.
	Along with many speakers in the debate, the Government abhor any form of hatred, whether it is founded on race or religious belief, and I think that that view resonates in this place as it does in the other House. It is right that we have been down this way before in relation to these matters, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, was absolutely correct to remind us of the evidence that was put before the Select Committee, the importance of this legislation to people in this country and the need to address the issue. But I am disappointed that a number of noble Lords have said that they do not think this legislation should have been brought before the House now, or that the issue can postponed; it really cannot.
	There are, however, clear differences of view. We all agree on the outcome we want to achieve, but the method by which it is achieved is a matter of concern and dispute. Noble Lords know well, because it was eloquently expressed at Second Reading by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor and replied to by my noble friend Lord Bassam, that the Government's view is that in order to have parity of treatment between all groups, it would be right and proper to amend this Bill in the way we have proposed, and in the way it has come from the Commons.
	But we were listening while the Bill made its way through the Commons and we continue to listen now, both at Second Reading and here in Committee. There are issues which we find difficult. The first and by no means the least is that of truncating the offence to restrict it simply to "threatening". The reason is that a number of substantive offences can be satisfied already with the mere use of threat. We believe that the words "insulting and abusive" add particular importance to this offence. That is because a person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of the offence if he intends thereby—this is an important qualification—to stir up racial or religious hatred. However, I appreciate that of course it is the religious hatred point on which we rightly concentrate.
	I turn now to the issue also rightly highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, raised by Section 18(5) of the Public Order Act 1986, which refers to a person who is not shown to have intended to stir up racial or religious hatred. He would not be guilty of an offence under the section if he did not intend his words, behaviour or written material to be so, or was not aware that it might be threatening, abusive or insulting.
	I understand the concern expressed by many noble Lords about the need to show intention. I understand also that the reason noble Lords say that is because they do not want a flippant and inconsequential aside to be used in a pernicious and destructive way to bring about a criminal conviction. That point has been made very clearly. But we have to approach this matter with a degree of calm. My noble friend Lord Parekh was absolutely right to remind us that when the previous legislation went through both Houses, similar concerns were expressed about the chilling effect that such legislation would have on race. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Lester, said about the difference between race and religion. One is able clearly to identify the one, but the other is by nature more nebulous and less distinct. Race and religion are quite often imparted at birth and can be essential to identity. We have to understand that.
	Concerns have been expressed about self-censorship. People say, "Forget about the legal position, will people behave differently?". Self-censorship was also a matter of concern in relation to racial hatred. The racial incitement offence, which covers nationality, has been in place now for nearly 20 years. It covers the Welsh, the Japanese and those who, like me, were born in Dominica; it covers Australians and the Irish—the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, is right to remind us of that. But it also covers Jews and Sikhs as well as the colour of a person's skin.
	I stand before the Committee as a woman of colour, as someone who was born in another country—I am Dominican—and as a woman of resounding and immovable faith. Those three items define who I am. If you utter words of hatred against me in relation to my race, you can be dealt with; if you utter words of hatred against me in relation to the place from whence I hail, you can be dealt with; if you utter words of hatred against me because of my colour, complexion and hue, I can do something about it. But if you generate hate against me because of my faith, I have no means of redress—although I would have a means of redress if I were a Jew or a Sikh. That is the position. There is no evidence—

The Earl of Onslow: Before the noble Baroness continues, am I not right in thinking that it is attacks on the racial element of Judaism and Sikhism which are subject to criminal prosecution, not the fact that Jews and Sikhs believe in whatever they believe in? It is not the religious side, which is what we were told in this House before, but the racial element.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: It is because it is seen as a mono-ethnic religion which brings it within the racial and religious dimension. A race which is identified by its religion is where the combination arises.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: Is it not the case—this is illustrated by a certain pending prosecution against the BNP at the moment—that the reason Jews and Sikhs are protected, as the noble Earl indicated, is because of their ethnicity, not because of their religious beliefs? Therefore, if, for example, a Muslim of Asian origin was to be attacked in precisely the same way because of his or her ethnicity, the same would apply.
	I have listened very carefully to the Minister. Am I right in saying—it is vital to know this before we decide what to do—that so far she has rejected two of three essential safeguards? First, she said that threatening alone will not do; and, secondly, she said that specific intent is too narrow. I am waiting to hear what she has to say about free speech, other than the Human Rights Act.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: In relation to the first limb, the noble Lord is right. Our current position—and I stress that it is our current position because we are thinking very hard indeed about how the gap that seems to have arisen, and which divides us, could or should be bridged—is that if the Committee was to ask today whether I am able to bridge that gap, the answer is no. If the Committee was to ask whether I may be able to bridge it by Report stage, I would say that that might or might not be the case, but I shall certainly look at the issue and I am going to try. If we move on to the second—

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: I apologise to the Minister if she has not finished with the point. If she has, I ask her a different short question: of the qualities she applied to herself, is there not a difference between the first group, such as where she was born and being a woman—a distinguished woman—of colour, and the last? She can change her faith, as I could change mine, although I do not think she will. I cannot alter the fact that I was born in Deptford and I am white.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: The point we are trying to address is the hatred that can be directed towards an individual in relation to those different defining things that may affect identity.
	I will explain where the Government are in relation to the other two. I understand people's concern over "likely to", although not because there is any distinction between the racial and the religious. I understand too the concern expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, among others, about whether it is clearly understood that the Human Rights Act and all its terms apply with equal force to this legislation. I see the noble Lord, Lord Lester, shaking his head, but I am seeking to deal with the concerns that have been raised by a number of noble Lords, and I need to do so.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: The point that I raised in debate, which the Minister has not replied to, is that it is no use relying on the Human Rights Act because Article 10 and its balancing are unclear. You need a free speech guarantee in the Bill.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: The Human Rights Act—I am sure I have heard the noble Lord say this on innumerable occasions—is the means through which we tend to preserve the proper balance of freedom of speech and other rights. We have to get the balance right.
	The thrust of what many in this House have said is "why not have something on the face of the Bill that gives that clarity, and gives voice to the fact that the Human Rights Act provision—the signature that we put on the front of the Bill—actually bites?". We have listened to that, and are considering how we could better address that concern. Our answer has been, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that it is there, in Article 10 and all the way through. However, that is an issue we will consider between now and Report.
	In relation to either of those last issues, I do not have amendments or proposals that I can put before the Committee that would be capable of reassuring your Lordships and/or of being the foundation of debate. The whole purpose of the Committee stage is for us to discuss, debate and listen, and then hone what is being proposed so that we can vote on it on Report, if that need arises and we have not resolved it.
	So that is where we are now. I do not say that the Government will not think again, but I say clearly that I do not have amendments or suggestions this afternoon that I can put before your Lordships that you can consider. I may be in a better position to do so by Report.

Lord Hunt of Wirral: This has been such an important debate. I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I do not seek to answer the many important points that have been made, but merely conclude the debate by saying to the Minister: if only she were in charge of the Government, I would have much greater confidence that this whole matter was going to get resolved properly. That is a genuine tribute to her, because in all my experience she has always been prepared to listen.
	The conclusion of the debate is that we disagree about the means but we agree about the ends, so we are as one in the intent. I hope that we have been able to explain that these amendments do just four things. First, they make the whole offence much easier to understand; secondly, they clarify the position over intent; thirdly, they separate the person from the belief, which many noble Lords have emphasised is so important; and, fourthly, they guarantee freedom of expression. I know the noble Lord, Lord Lester, will point out that Article 10 does not do that in the terms of the amendment.
	I say to the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, that I have a copy of the manifesto here; and I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, that he did not finish the quotation from the manifesto. It concludes with the words about the Government's determination to work out,
	"how best to balance protection, tolerance and free speech".
	That is really what we are seeking to do.
	I received from the Minister the letter that several noble Lords have quoted, and I want to accept her promise. She said:
	"if there is a solution that attracts widespread support .. I will of course give it very serious consideration."
	That is why I am sure that today we should test the opinion of the Committee. But I give this undertaking to the Chamber: that I am perfectly prepared, as are my colleagues, to sit down with the Minister and other Ministers, the officials and the parliamentary draftsmen, in the time which lies between now and Report, to work out ways in which we can improve—

Lord Clinton-Davis: Why cannot the noble Lord give the Government an opportunity to have second thoughts now? A vote would be irrelevant today, in many ways. Why does the noble Lord not want to give the Government an opportunity to think again about this vital issue?

Lord Hunt of Wirral: I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, that it has been five years since this whole idea was first explored. There was a promise of consultation but, sadly, the Government decided to introduce this Bill and to seek to force it through. The present position, which the Minister has not changed, is that the Government are determined to force the Bill through in its present form. That is why it is important that we respond to the Minister's invitation to see whether these amendments have widespread support. I wish to test the opinion of the Committee.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
	Their Lordships divided: Contents, 260; Not-Contents, 111

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: moved Amendment No. 2:
	Page 1, line 6, leave out paragraph (b).
	On Question, amendment agreed to.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: The Committee has agreed to Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, which are paving amendments for Amendment No. 31. Amendment No. 31 will remove the schedule to the Bill and replace it with a new schedule dealing with religious hatred only. The Government will, therefore, not today oppose Amendment No. 31.
	Amendments Nos. 4 to 30 are to the existing schedule, and the final decision on the schedule will not be made until Amendment No. 31 is reached. Strictly speaking, Amendments Nos. 4 to 30 and Amendment No. 3, which is to Clause 1 are not pre-empted and must be called by the Chairman.
	Any of those amendments may be debated. It is of course a matter for Members of the Committee who have tabled them to decide whether they wish to move them in the light of the decision that the Committee has just made.

Lord Grocott: I beg to move that the House be now resumed for the Statement.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House resumed.

Schools White Paper

Lord Adonis: With the leave of the House I shall repeat a Statement on school reform made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills.
	"With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the reform of schools.
	"Every child matters and children have only one chance of a good school education. Our ambition is for every child to get that chance and to develop their talents to the fullest extent. The White Paper that I am publishing today aims to make this aspiration a reality by building systematically on eight years of rising school standards and sustained investment by this Government in the teaching profession and school reform.
	"It places parents at the heart of education, extending parental choice and giving schools the freedom they require to meet parental demand and pupil need in radically new and better ways.
	"Since 1997, the quality of teaching and leadership in our schools has been transformed. Primary schools now have a daily literacy hour and mathematics lesson, with smaller primary school classes and significant investment in the training of primary teachers and assistants. Secondary schools have benefited from a systematic upgrading in the number, quality and training of subject specialist teachers. Graduate applications for secondary school teaching have risen by 60 per cent in just six years. There are 32,000 more teachers than in 1997, and the number of school support staff has doubled over the same period
	"Ofsted reports the proportion of good or excellent teaching in primary schools rising since 1997 from 45 per cent to 74 per cent, and from 59 per cent to 78 per cent in secondary schools. The proportion of badly taught lessons has halved.
	"Thanks to our literacy and numeracy strategies, around 96,000 more children a year start secondary school able to do well in basic maths and 84,000 more do so in English. There have been big improvements at GCSE level, too, with 63,000 more 16-year-olds achieving five or more good GCSE passes than in 1997. Change has been greatest in many areas of historic underperformance. In inner London 50 per cent more young people gained five good grades this year than eight years ago. Specialist schools consistently out-perform other schools, and nearly 2,400 have now been established. Twenty-seven academies are already open, with more to come.
	"There are now 413 non-selective schools where 70 per cent or more pupils gain five good GCSEs. In 1997 there were just 83.
	"This is a record of success. But challenges remain. For all the progress so far, too many 11 year-olds still leave primary school without mastering the 3Rs. Too many 16 year-olds are still not achieving good GCSEs or vocational qualifications, and too few are staying in education post-16. Parents often feel disengaged, and too many schools are coasting. Those who fail to achieve too often come from the least advantaged backgrounds.
	"We are at an historic turning point. We have an education system that has overcome more than half a century of underperformance. With courage to reform further by placing the parent and the pupil right at the heart of the system, we can now make our schools truly world class—a system that commands parental confidence and extends excellence to all.
	"There will be no return to the divisive 11-plus; no return to the unfair assisted-places scheme; no return to privileging a few schools at the expense of the rest. Instead, teaching will be rigorously tailored for pupils of all aptitudes in schools that are unafraid to be distinctive, proud of their individual ethos, yet proud, too, of the communities they serve.
	"Our best schools and school leaders are models in all these respects. The challenge of change is for all schools to emulate the best, forging whatever partnerships they need to enhance their leadership and mission, while giving parents real power to drive change.
	"Today's White Paper sets out six key reform priorities to bring this about. First, to improve teaching and learning, we will provide significant new incentives for schools to tailor education to the needs of each and every child. There will be more use of small group and one-to-one tuition, particularly for those who fall behind. We will intensify our focus on literacy and numeracy, which are the keys to success in all subjects. There will be expanded opportunities for gifted and talented pupils. We will further encourage setting and grouping pupils by ability. We will continue to expand and improve provision for pupils with special educational needs, enabling far more special schools to join the successful specialist school movement and share their expertise widely with all local schools. There will be a national delivery plan for the creation of the new specialised diplomas that I announced in February to transform educational choices for pupils beyond the age of 14. All this will be underpinned by the Government's record investment in schools, including £335 million to be specifically earmarked for personalised learning within the new dedicated schools' grant that I announced to the House last week. Workforce reform and the increased use of ICT will further transform the capacity of schools to meet the needs of each and every child.
	"Secondly, we will give all schools the independence they need to drive radical improvements in standards and the flexibility to create real centres of excellence. Building on our successful specialist school and academies programmes, we will extend academy-style freedoms and opportunities to thousands of schools through new trust schools. These self-governing schools will be funded by local authorities but will partner with and be supported by not-for-profit trusts established for example by successful educational foundations, leading schools and universities, parents' groups and voluntary organisations. These schools will bring extra dynamism and expertise to education. All schools will be eligible to be trust schools, alongside our planned 200 academies. I am pleased to announce that a range of outstanding organisations, including Microsoft, the Open University, the Mercers' Company and Thomas Telford School, the United Learning Trust, the Church of England, KPMG and. the Peabody Trust, have agreed to work with us to develop the trust model, bringing to it extensive educational and school management experience, together with strong links to local communities.
	"Thirdly, we will improve the choice of schools for parents by giving less affluent parents the means to make choice effective, and by putting in place much more rapid mechanisms for turning round and replacing failing schools. A choice between weak or failing schools is no choice at all. Schools that are still failing after a year will be closed, federated with another more successful school or replaced with an academy or another new provider. Our new inspection regime will focus on schools that are coasting, as well those that are failing. We will raise the bar on underperformance across the system. In addition, we will improve the advice for parents on the options available; we will improve transport to school, particularly for the most deprived pupils where the cost of transport can be a barrier; and we will promote admission systems that extend access, ensuring fair admissions for all new schools.
	"But the role of the parent does not stop with the choice of school. Education works best where schools and parents work together, with each recognising both their rights and their responsibilities. So fourthly, we will enable all parents to contribute much more fully throughout a child's school career, with better support, information and advice, especially at key transition points. We will place a new duty on governing bodies to have regard to parent's views. We will improve the quality and regularity of the dialogue between parents and schools, including reports at least once a term in place of the existing minimum of once a year. We will give parents a new right of complaint to Ofsted if local procedures have been exhausted.
	"Fifthly, teachers and heads have asked for better support to tackle disruption and ill discipline. So we will implement Sir Alan Steer's recommendations, giving teachers a clear statutory right to discipline and giving schools an unambiguous power to set and enforce their own discipline codes. Parents will take their responsibilities seriously or face sanctions where they do not, including fixed penalty notices for parents who do not properly supervise pupils who are excluded from school. Pupils excluded for more than five days, not 15 days as now, will be expected to attend supervised education units.
	"Sixthly, we will underpin our reforms with a new and crucial role for local authorities. They will become the commissioner of education, the champion of the pupil and the parent and the local strategic leader. They will tackle coasting and failing schools. They will oversee competitions to deliver new schools. And they will work with the new Office of the Schools Commissioner that I will create to promote new trust schools and academies in response to parental demand. Many local authorities are already pioneering this approach. We now need all our local authorities to do so.
	"These reforms mark a watershed in the development of our national education system. All our young people deserve the best; we intend them to receive it, so that social mobility once again accelerates as the engine of a fairer and more prosperous society. Every pupil receiving a tailored education. Every parent with real choice. Every school with the freedom to deliver. I commend the White Paper to the House".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement.
	Our approach to his proposals will be straightforward. Wherever the Government promote rigour, encourage discipline, and give schools more autonomy and parents more choice, we will support them. With the Cabinet clearly divided regarding this crucially important issue of how we genuinely achieve higher standards in schools for all, our real concern is whether the many promises set out in this White Paper will actually materialize. After all, eight years ago this Government abolished grant-maintained schools. Let us remember: those were state schools, free of local authority control, able to set their own culture and ethos. That sounds familiar does it not? Why has it taken the Government eight years to have the courage to admit that the one-size-fits-all approach to education has now failed generations of children?
	Turning now to the key issues, let me begin with school autonomy. All the evidence shows that standards rise when schools are free to innovate, free to diversify, and free to specialise. The question for the Government is this: will today's proposals lead to real autonomy? Real autonomy means schools controlling their own finances. So will the Minister confirm that in future funding for schools will go directly to them or will it continue to go through the local education authorities?
	We have a sense that the role of the local education authority is set to remain strong. Is that as a result of Cabinet disagreement? Is it really possible for schools to have real autonomy, when the local education authorities control their budgets? We see that local authorities will change from "provider" to "commissioner". Is this a leopard changing its spots? How, in practice, will they engage with parents to achieve fairer access to,
	"good schools in every area"?
	Real autonomy means head teachers in control, not tied up in centralised rules, regulations and bureaucracy.
	So will the Minister take action and cut paperwork, including the self-evaluation reports running to hundreds of pages that are driving head teachers up the wall? What guarantee can he give that this White Paper will not add to bureaucracy? Can the noble Lord tell us whether the new parents' councils will replace governing bodies, or will they be set up in addition to them? If the Government want real autonomy can he confirm that these independent schools in the state sector will own their buildings and land, employ their own staff, have the freedom to expand and the ability to opt out of national agreements?
	One of the statements in the White Paper that concerns me most is,
	"widening curriculum choice in secondary education, so that more young people are motivated by study that interests them."
	Will the Minister please at least attempt to allay my fears by confirming today that this so called "personalised learning" will not in any way compromise or diffuse educational standards, and that this is not about undermining academic subjects, so that it looks like pupils' attainment has increased? We accept that it is important to motivate and inspire. However, the national curriculum supports the core subjects and should not be tampered with lightly.
	We support the proposal to get independent providers into the state sector. But we have heard it so many times before from this Government—in 1998, 2002 and earlier this year. Can the Minister confirm that so far one—just one—additional independent school has come into the state sector?
	The White Paper talks of a new role for LEAs. Can he tell us what will be done to stop them preventing new providers from coming into the sector? If they are replacing school organisation committees—another set of quangos that Labour set up and is now abolishing—will not the problem get even worse?
	The next point is the expansion of good schools. Education Ministers have repeatedly given assurances that the surplus places rule did not exist. Yesterday, the Prime Minister confirmed that it did and that it would be scrapped. Why has it taken so long for the Government to identify and get rid of the road blocks to giving us more good school places?
	The White Paper praises city academies. We back academies, which are, after all, based on Conservative city technology colleges. But how will he avoid the real danger that they end up replicating failed comprehensives in smart new buildings? Will he give them real freedom in setting admissions? Will he let the business backers cut waste and open their buildings to the community so that they can be engines of regeneration, not islands of investment?
	The next key issue is a difficult one for any Government: admissions. We all want to move from the situation where we have selection by house price to genuine diversity in schools, with parents having choice. But the Government have created total confusion over this issue. One briefing suggested the compulsory banding and then bussing of children across LEAs. This would represent top-down social engineering beyond even the wildest dreams of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. So will the Minister rule out bussing designed to meet some arbitrary central admissions quota?
	The White Paper argues that streaming and setting should be the norm in schools. We agree. Again, as with "personalised learning" can we be sure that this is not a means to achieving targets? Will the minister confirm that in streaming, pupils are taught in classes according to academic ability and attainment so that if they do not bother to work they move down a stream or if their work improves they move up a stream? If the Government are serious about standards is it not time to reform the QCA, to insist on rigour in exam standards and to give heads the final say on discipline and exclusions?
	Yesterday the Prime Minister said that this is a pivotal moment. In the past eight years we have had lines in the sand, final moments, final chances, defining moments—and now it is pivotal. But it has been pivotal for pupils and parents all along. The problem is this Government's sheer inability to act. What I fear is that only the worst parts of the White Paper will be implemented and the best will be forgotten. The only way that the best ideas in this White Paper have a chance of being introduced is if we have a Government who believe heart, head and soul in rigour, autonomy and choice. It is the relationship between pupil and teacher and excellence in teaching that will raise standards in all our schools. This must be underpinned by a strong curriculum.
	If the White Paper is as pivotal as the Prime Minister says it is, I believe it is essential that noble Lords have an opportunity to debate it on the Floor of the House. That debate should be accommodated well before Christmas so that the House has an opportunity to influence the development of policy.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement of the Secretary of State in another place entitled, Higer Standards, Better Schools for All. That is exactly what it says. I am not sure what that spelling says about the standard of literacy in the Department for Education and Skills. However, let us turn to the content of the Statement.
	We have heard a lot about school freedom, and here the Minister has a case. If the Government have really turned their back on top-down centralist control of English schools, they will have our support, as long as the entitlement of the children to a good education is not affected. Can the Minister confirm that the DfES will keep complete control of school funding? Is it not, therefore, central government that stifles variety, on the basis that he who pays the piper calls the tune? Is it not the Treasury and his own department's rules that prevent local communities building the schools they need?
	The Ford Motor Company used to say that you could have any colour you liked as long as it was black. The Government say that you can have any new school you like as long as it is an academy—before there has been any proper evaluation of the success or otherwise of the few existing academies. A similar statement can be made about grant-maintained schools. Crucially, should not schools serve whole communities and not just the parents of the pupils who temporarily attend them? Can the Minister tell the House what powers the Chancellor has given up? What powers has the Secretary of State given up? Without the Chancellor's signature on the policy, how can we expect the changes to be irreversible? He has been ominously quiet during the past few days of dizzying spin and Cabinet splits.
	Listening to the Minister's words, one might think that this is not the end of local democratic involvement with education, contrary to the impression given by the Prime Minister's weekend pronouncements outside the House of Commons. But why is he still seeking to hand over admissions policies to schools, when it is the one protective power that parents really need their local community to keep? Does not he realise that handing over admissions risks a free for all between schools—competition not co-operation— producing a shambles that will confuse parents and not help them? What happens when too many parents want to send their children to the same school? Who decides? Who will check the marketing materials produced by ambitious schools to prevent overclaiming? Will there be a new quango—perhaps the school advertising standards authority? Does not the Minister realise that no school is an island and that what one school does with admissions always affects the intake of all other local schools?
	Surely we want a variety of locally based social markets in education, not the Secretary of State's free market. In her model, who will speak up for special needs and looked-after children? Who will guarantee fairness and equality of opportunity in her new system? How can the local authority carry out those roles in her free market model? The Government's answer seems to be parent power. That may work in some places, but what will the Secretary of State do in areas where schools struggle to get any parents to serve as governors?
	The Minister talks about expanding schools. I accept that that can work, especially with school federations. However, can he say whether a school will be able to choose its size and build its ethos on being small if it wants to; or could a school be forced to double in size under the plans? If people want to go there, it could become a victim of its own success. When it comes to choice, we are for real, meaningful choice—a choice of good schools in every community; a choice that can be achieved by grasping the opportunity presented by falling secondary school numbers. Therefore, can the Minister confirm that the government figures show nearly half a million fewer children coming into secondary schools in the next 10 years? Is not that the spare capacity that we need for meaningful parental choice and for raising quality and standards? Is not the future years of falling pupil numbers the best time to copy in the state system the most desirable things about private schools, things for which parents are prepared to pay large amounts of money: small classes and small schools?
	As Mike Tomlinson said, what is important is what happens in the classroom. The Government are tinkering with structures yet again, instead of focusing on improving the education delivered to each and every child in each and every classroom. Surely the ideas that we have just heard will have almost no impact on the fact that 25 per cent of 17 year-olds are not in full-time education or training. Would not it be more radical to give them real choice: to free up the curriculum for 14 to 19 year-olds and revisit the Tomlinson plans for diplomas?
	Perhaps the most disappointing thing in the Statement was the lack of new ideas for primary education. Does not the Minister recognise that the best way to improve secondary education is to ensure that children get a good start and are able to read, write and add up? Is not the real barrier to higher standards the fact that nearly half of 11 year-olds cannot do all that? Surely the focus today on structures rather than standards will not change anything in the classroom and government over-prescription on what schools do with the new individual learning money will not help.
	Halfway through the Every Child Matters agenda, the White Paper presents real problems with seeing the school as the hub for a wide range of services. Can the Minister say how the marginalisation of the role of the LEA affects that agenda and the duty to protect children? The Government declined to accept amendments to the Children Act 2004 that would have specifically listed schools in the arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. In the light of today's proposals to give more freedom to a greater number of schools, will the Minister amend the Children Act to ensure that our vulnerable children are well supported?
	Our schools need reform. The status quo is far from perfect, and we support sensible change. We want schools to be free from Whitehall but not free from serving their local community. Labour wants to retain central controls and keep the purse strings. We will support real choice for parents, using falling rolls to drive up standards, not to drive convoys of school buses taking children miles away to find a good school. Today, Labour has offered yet more structural reform that, we believe, will achieve little.

The Lord Bishop of Salisbury: My Lords—

Baroness Crawley: My Lords, the Minister will reply at this stage, and then I am sure that the right reverend Prelate will have an opportunity to contribute.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I am new; I am happy to do whatever the House wishes. The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, said that it would be great if we had the opportunity to debate this matter. I am told that it is more than my life is worth to say that I can agree to that. The usual channels will need to consider the request. However, I would relish the opportunity to debate the proposals, and I believe that it would be good for us to debate at greater length a large number of the important issues raised by both noble Baronesses.
	In particular, it is important to overcome the idea that somehow we are engaging in structural reform at the expense of standards. Since 1997, we have sought to unite more effective structures with the standards that they are able to provide in schools. The whole of the first third of the Statement went through the achievements that we have secured since 1997—improving teaching in schools and improving the results achieved and doing so through a systematic enhancement in the quality of the teaching profession.
	I make it absolutely clear—the Government are in no doubt about this—that the single most important thing that will determine the success of our schools over time is the quality of our teaching profession. As we have seen, that quality has improved systematically since 1997, with a huge increase in the number of recruits; the success of organisations such as Teach First, which have brought a new cadre of highly qualified graduates into the profession; and the reports of Ofsted into the quality of teaching. Standards are important because, where they are right, they engage teachers, mobilising and organising them in a better way, and that enables higher achievement. So, we do not believe that there is a conflict between the structural reforms that we are promoting and standards. On the contrary, we believe that the structural changes will enhance standards.
	I was particularly surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said that we had no new ideas for primary education, and she asked what we were going to do about the 3Rs. It is widely accepted that one of the positive reforms that the Government carried through was the literacy and numeracy strategy, with the daily literacy hour and mathematics lesson in primary schools. That started in 1998 and grew out of pilot projects developed under the previous government, but we introduced it systematically.
	Through that strategy, we have sought to improve the training available to primary school teachers in every primary school in the country and rigorously to apply best practice in the teaching of literacy and numeracy. Indeed, just before the summer, we asked Jim Rose, a former senior HMI, to look at the specific issue of reading in primary schools. We asked him to consider how best practice that had been developed since we started the literacy strategy could be applied more systematically to improve the teaching of reading in schools and to tackle the stubborn 20 per cent who have reached the age of 11 in our primary schools but have still not attained the standard expected of their age. We have put huge resources into those primary initiatives. It is widely recognised that they have yielded good results, and we intend to stick at them.
	With regard to the many questions raised about the structural reforms, I say at the outset that, where we have support from the two parties opposite, we welcome it and will seek to work constructively with them and to engage that support as the Bill proceeds through the House. I hope that, on the areas where we are in agreement, we can at least park those agreements and not continue to argue about them. The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, asked whether we would be as good as our word. I can assure her that we will be and that the measures that I have announced today will lead to a robust education Bill. We look forward to the support that she will be able to give us in making this as cross-party an initiative as possible.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said that she sought to achieve a variety of locally based social markets and not a free market. We are not proposing a free market if, by "free market", she means an entirely unregulated market. I can assure her that no market in the world is more regulated than the school system that was developed in England in the decades after 1944. We are seeking to give a greater impetus to new promoters and to choice and diversity in a system that will remain regulated, as it needs to be, in appropriate areas to ensure, as the noble Baroness rightly said, local accountability and—I fear that this is an area of disagreement between us—fairness in admissions.
	However, there will be clear disagreement between the Labour and Conservative Parties on whether we allow selection to grow in the state system, in the way that the noble Baroness and her counterpart in the House of Commons were proposing, by allowing new schools to introduce selective admissions arrangements that, effectively, would reintroduce an 11-plus in those local communities. We are clear that that is not an acceptable policy. The academies referred to earlier are not allowed to select by ability. They must have all-ability admissions—a reform introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Baker.

Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I reassure the Minister that I do not think I said anything about ability in terms of selection.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, that is very reassuring, and I look forward to studying Hansard on that point. Our belief was that, as the noble Baroness's counterpart in the House of Commons said in an article in the Evening Standard last week, academies would be able to change their admissions criteria to introduce selective admissions criteria. It would be good if that could be confirmed; we still see it as a fundamental division between us. As I was saying, the city technology colleges were introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Baker. In the legislation is a requirement that they must have all-ability admissions, and we have stuck to that.
	I shall now address some of the specific issues raised. I was asked whether parents' councils would replace governing bodies or whether they would be in addition to them. They will be in addition to them. Many schools, including academies, have parents' councils at present, and they find that a worthwhile reform. But there will be a requirement to have parents' councils only where a trust chooses to appoint a majority of the governors to ensure that there is a sufficient voice for parents in those schools.
	I was asked whether trust schools would be able to own their own buildings and land and whether they would be able to employ their own staff directly. The answer is that they will be. The noble Baroness asked whether they would be able to opt out of national agreements. They will be able to innovate and seek to differ from national agreements, where the Secretary of State is prepared to accept that. We intend to use that power in an open-minded way. However, the noble Baroness herself said a few moments later that we should not tamper with the national curriculum lightly because it was an entitlement for pupils. We agree with her. The entitlement—established, again, by the noble Lord, Lord Baker—to the range of the national curriculum is important in our education system, and we shall look very carefully at proposals that would depart significantly from that. We see it as an entitlement that applies to all schools, regardless of their autonomy in management.
	The matter of bussing to meet arbitrary admissions targets was raised. There will be no bussing under the proposals. The issue is not one of bussing pupils and their parents to schools that they do not wish to attend; the issue facing us is how we can enhance access to schools that parents wish to choose on a wider basis than is available at present. The school transport proposals in the White Paper would extend the availability of school transport to parents who wished to choose a school other than the one nearest to them.
	There are other points to which I shall reply, but I want to say that when the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said that what was important was what happened in the classroom and that that was the ultimate test, I could not have agreed with her more. Ultimately, what matters is what happens in the classroom. Certain new types of school are popular with parents. They include academies; specialist schools, which have been expanding in number markedly in recent years; and faith schools, where they are well led and there is a big demand from parents in many areas to establish new ones. Those schools are popular with parents not because there is any great attachment to the principle of Diversity with a capital "D" but because they are good schools with good teaching and learning in the classroom, teachers who are highly motivated and high standards, and therefore parental support rises accordingly. The test of the reforms will be whether they produce more good schools, emulating the good and successful schools that we already have in the system. That is a practical test. It is one that we believe is met in the reforms that we have introduced in the past five years, and the White Paper seeks to enhance that process further.

The Lord Bishop of Salisbury: My Lords, I apologise to the Minister for attempting to stop him. That is not a good example of the kind of co-operation that I want to offer him from the Church of England. We welcome every opportunity to play our part in improving education for all.
	On the basis of long experience, we believe that it is possible to have schools that are both distinctive and inclusive. We have a recent history of seeking to strengthen our contribution to secondary education—44 new secondary schools and 53 under discussion have Church of England attachment. Does the Minister accept that there are real possibilities for serious partnership in the field?
	Will he further accept that on the basis of experience we might assist in the Government's aim of improving opportunity for all through diocesan trusts, which might provide just the environment needed for some of our schools struggling to reach acceptable standards of education?
	The test will be whether between all of us involved in education we can sufficiently improve the education experience of the bottom 25 per cent of our school pupils and attract and keep the best people in the hugely valuable and meanly rewarded teaching profession.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, perhaps I may first say how sorry we are that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth is not in his place this afternoon. I think I speak for the whole House in sending our best wishes to him.

The Lord Bishop of Salisbury: My Lords, I should tell your Lordships that he has responded enormously well to treatment. I am going to see him on Thursday. Although it is unlikely that he will in his place much before Easter, he will be grateful when I see him if I can take the good wishes of the House.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, we send those good wishes in full measure.
	I thank the right reverend Prelate for his remarks, with which I agree in their entirety. He is right: we are seeking to achieve schools that are both distinctive and inclusive. The Church of England accepts that as its mission and is playing an important role in many of our most challenging communities in helping to establish schools that have both of those characteristics.
	The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool and I were speaking only this afternoon about the outstanding academy in Liverpool that he has pioneered and indeed is chairing the governors of, serving the Kensington district of Liverpool, which is a highly deprived community. It is a community school that will not give any faith preference for admissions. It is being set up in partnership with the Roman Catholic Church. In that sense it is a path-breaking project. That is exactly the kind of initiative focused on providing excellent education with a strong inclusive ethos in some of our most deprived communities that we wish to see extended more widely and the opportunity of the trust schools that we believe will enable that to take place. We welcome the full engagement of the Church of England and the other faith communities in that process.

Lord Jones: My Lords, does the Minister understand that more choice for parents and pupils can be an irresistible formula for success? Will he also accept that the head teachers' professionalism and capacity for leadership and capability for inspiration are vital to the future of every school and that his White Paper surely encompasses that objective? To what extent if any has the Secretary of State for Wales contributed to his White Paper? If he has not, the British Prime Minister has shared his vision for English schools in his publication. What shall we expect for Wales? Is the current Welsh schools system sufficient, or shall we expect Statements for Wales as well?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, education is a substantially devolved matter in respect of Wales. The regulation of the school system there and the reforms that I have talked about this afternoon are a matter for the Welsh Assembly. I cannot answer for them this afternoon. In respect of head teachers, my noble friend makes an important point, which is that the leadership of our schools is critical to their success. We have invested substantially in school leadership since 1997. We set up the first national college for school leadership in Nottingham, which oversees all of the training programmes for head teachers and has outstanding courses and leadership programmes for aspiring head teachers. We have significantly improved the pay of head teachers—both primary and secondary—since 1997 and we have introduced new professional qualifications for leadership, all of which, according to Ofsted, have played a significant part in raising standards in our schools. He is right to highlight school leadership. Without effective leadership our schools would not have the capacity to succeed in the way that they do.

Lord Baker of Dorking: My Lords, I congratulate the Government unreservedly on reintroducing the sort of school that I introduced in 1988 and which they abolished in 1997. There should be rejoicing when a sinner repenteth. May I express the hope that the new state independent schools will be as successful as the grant-maintained schools? I raise with the Minister two points that follow from the Government's proposals. First, on schools for children with special educational needs, I assume that the new powers granted to parents will also extend to such schools, which is good news indeed, since no special schools now threatened by local education authorities will be closed, since the wishes of parents are overwhelmingly in favour of keeping such schools going.
	Secondly, if any private faith schools decide to use those powers to obtain government funding, will the Minister ensure that the admissions procedures insist on children of all faiths being admitted to such schools? These powers should not be used to extend exclusive schools in our society.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, on the second point, it is a requirement that faith schools should be open to pupils of all faiths. However, it is permissible—as the noble Lord knows—for faith schools to give preference to pupils of one faith. That is the basis on which a good proportion of faith schools operate at the moment. That same right would apply to new schools established that receive a designation of faith schools, but we are anxious, as are the schools themselves, that faith schools should be fully inclusive in their local communities and they do not have the right to refuse to admit pupils of other faiths.
	I acknowledge the important role of special schools. We will consult, as we set out in the White Paper, on how the arrangements will apply in the special schools sector. However, for the record, I would not want it to be thought that no proposal in respect of reorganisation of special schools can now come forward for the local authority. Local authorities have an important role in generating proposals to enhance educational opportunities in their areas. A proper process has to be gone through, but I should make it clear that there is not a blanket exemption of all schools from any process of having to consider how they can better provide for the communities in which they serve.

Lord Dearing: My Lords, when I read through the White Paper I was able to tick off with gladness the emphasis given on establishing standards in English and basic mathematics and helping those who have lagged behind to reach a desirable standard by the end of primary school, and if not then, by the end of key stage 3. I also welcomed the note taken of the importance of helping those with gifts and talents to realise their potential. There is so much that one can welcome. When we come to structure, the Government say that the White Paper is concerned with developing a radically new school system. The teachers out there would wish that they were here to say to the parties here represented and to us on the Cross Benches, "For goodness sake, try to agree something, because what we don't want—and our kids can't afford—is for you politicians to keep changing things".
	Therefore I was glad to hear the Minister and the Benches opposite saying that they would like to co-operate in finding ways forward. It is good news. I shall move on briefly, because I hope that we will have that day's debate. I have two questions. First, the Minister said that a number of outstanding organisations were co-operating with the Government in developing the trust model. I gather that the Government want thousands of such trust schools that will be linked to a trust, which will have the power to appoint up to a majority of the governing body. So those thousands of trusts will have an important and powerful role. What will be the criteria that determine whether Fred and co can establish a trust? How will we go about identifying something as pervasive and powerful as that?
	Although I welcome the greater freedom for schools to respond to their pupils and their distinctive enthusiasms with rigour in adapting their admissions policies, curriculum and particular emphases, my second question is about whether the local authority will have the flow of knowledge and the powers to ensure that the collection of independent decision-taking bodies meets the needs of the community as a whole. How will that work?
	If this had been another occasion, I might have reminded the Minister—and I find that I am doing it—that when we moved to a new system of schools inspection, it was piloted. How good it would be if it were practical to pilot this in one major local authority area before we commit the whole of England to it.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, the noble Lord raises a number of important issues. The role of these trusts will be important. Indeed, I gave examples of trusts that are already heavily engaged in the education system, including as promoters of academies. I believe that all of them would be recognised by your Lordships as bona fide organisations that bring a good deal of positive influence and huge experience to bear in the education system. That is precisely the type of organisation that we have in mind in developing the trusts to which I referred.
	However, the reason why we have established the office of schools commissioner, and have kept a reserve power of reference to the local schools adjudicator, is to guard against precisely the issue that the noble Lord raised; that is, where it would not be in the public interest for an undesirable trust to develop a relationship with a school and be able to oversee its governing body.
	I should also stress that for the most part decisions about whether schools go down the trust model route will be for them. Much was made of central and local control but it will be individual school governing bodies, having consulted their parents and local communities, that will determine whether the school goes down this road. I say "for the most part" because there is also the important issue of effective action that we expect to taken in the case of failing and weak schools. The White Paper is clear that in those cases local authorities, or ultimately the Secretary of State, may have a role—as the Secretary of State does at the moment in respect of academies—to put forward proposals for the development of new schools, including trust schools, in those areas. Our position is very clear. In cases of failure and extreme weakness, we have a responsibility to act and we cannot simply stand apart and allow another generation of pupils to be failed by schools that are not able to meet parental expectations.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, will he refer to a previous statement he made about children of all faiths so that we can record it in Hansard? Did he mean children of all faiths or none?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I should make it clear that I meant all faiths and none.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, I will put three quick questions to the Minister. He has made much of the improvement in quality that has so far taken place as a result of initiatives from the Government such as the literacy hour, the numeracy hour and Teach First. Another important initiative that they have taken has been continuous professional training and development for teachers and, as has already been mentioned, leadership training. Does he not realise that the structural change that is being proposed cuts across so many of these other initiatives? There is a limited amount of change that organisations such as schools can absorb at one time. Is he not aware that by doing this he will cut across many good initiatives that will be put on hold while the school reorganises itself yet again. It has happened in the National Health Service and it is destabilising it. Is he not in danger of destabilising the education service as a result of these reforms?
	Secondly, the Minister said very firmly that trust schools can opt out of the national curriculum and can employ staff on their own terms. But the question is about admissions. What does,
	"we will promote admission systems that extend access, and ensuring fair admissions",
	mean? I do not understand that phrase. Can he explain it to us?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I do not accept that structural reform is inimical to the best interests of teachers or to their ability to develop their professional standards. On the contrary, if we take one of the biggest structural reforms that we have engaged in since 1997—the expansion of specialist school status to the great majority of the secondary school system—it was a structural reform that required schools to change and has been warmly welcomed by teachers, particularly in areas where subject specialist centres of excellence have been developed, because they see it as an enhancement of their professional competence.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, the change to specialist status brought an extra half a million pounds to each school.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I was answering the questions put by the noble Baroness. I think that she adopts a very cynical and unfair attitude to the teaching profession if she thinks that it has embraced these reforms only because of the money on the table. If she visits schools, she will find that teachers have embraced these reforms because they see them as a great opportunity for enhancing their professional status and the range of provision that their schools are able to offer. It has been the same experience with academies. It has not been the case that academies have had difficulty recruiting staff or excellent head teachers. On the contrary, well motivated staff and head teachers have welcomed the opportunity to teach in schools with a powerful sense of mission and purpose, and particularly to serve those communities that have been so badly served in educational terms in the past.
	The noble Baroness raised the issue of the freedoms and flexibilities of schools and I was very careful to answer that one by saying that there would not be a unilateral power to opt out of the national curriculum. I need to make that very clear. Schools and trusts will have the ability to make proposals to the Secretary of State to vary the national curriculum when they believe that they can achieve higher standards by doing so—for example, by having more flexibility over the range of subjects that is studied—but we will look very carefully at those requests and our starting position is that the national curriculum remains an entitlement for all pupils.
	We are very clear on the issue of admissions. All schools, including new schools, will be expected to abide by the admissions code of practice, which makes clear the range of acceptable admissions arrangements. In respect of academies and other new schools, we agree the admissions criteria with the foundations that set them up at the point of signing a funding agreement with them. There is a big debate in the education world about the merits of banding against proximity admissions, and many specialist schools, academies and other comprehensives adopt a range of different all-ability admissions policies within that spectrum. But, although there is some flexibility in admissions, the requirement that we impose is that they must be within the admissions code of practice and there must be fairness in each locality.

Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, I very rarely intervene on a Statement, but today I feel that I cannot let this moment go by without comment. I shall never forget the stubbornness of the new Labour Government in 1997, when Lady Blatch battled away hour after hour as they destroyed and abolished grant-maintained schools. She would have been intrigued and surprised yesterday to hear the Prime Minister, in his passion of the day, say that the Government had had a partial change of heart and now accept that the provision of education for our children is best done by giving freedom to schools to organise themselves. Does the Minister share the sadness of many people that a whole generation of children has been denied the educational opportunities that are now proposed?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, if one visits schools that were grant-maintained, they are almost invariably flourishing today, often more than they were when they were grant-maintained, thanks to the much higher levels of funding and support that they have received from the Government. The idea that we have destroyed those schools is a fantasy that can only come from not having an engagement with the schools themselves. The schools that were grant-maintained, almost all of which now have foundation status, have all the essential freedoms and flexibilities that they had as grant-maintained schools, apart from unfair levels of funding relative to other schools—although their total funding will be higher because of the big increase in national education funding since 1997—and the power to select pupils unfairly that was given to grant-maintained schools. Apart from those two key elements—and the debate about whether it is best to fund schools nationally from one funding agency or locally from another, which is not really an issue provided that the money gets through to them directly, which it does—there has not been any change in the position of grant-maintained schools that has left them less able to deliver the high quality education that they did then and which they continue to deliver now.

A noble Lord: My Lords—

Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I am afraid that time is up because a custom of making secondary interventions is creeping in. Otherwise, more noble Lords would have got in.

Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

House again in Committee on Clause 1.

The Earl of Onslow: moved Amendment No. 3:
	Page 1, line 7, at end insert—
	"( ) provides that the condemnation of, or protest against, the justification of certain practices on religious grounds shall not be an offence."

The Earl of Onslow: I welcome Leonidas back to the Front Bench opposite. The amendment attempts to tease out from the Government why it should be all right not to hate somebody who advocates hateful policies. Amendment No. 30 to the Schedule, which is grouped with the amendment, states:
	"Nothing in this Part applies to the condemnation of, or protest against, the justification on religious grounds of the following practices—
	(a) cruel and unusual punishments,
	(b) ritual murder or mutilation,
	(c) discrimination between people on the grounds of gender or sexual orientation,
	(d) persecution or genocide".
	I suggest that most of those are actually illegal under British law. I also suggest that, in the well-established case of a Shia cleric who ensured the conviction of a young girl, aged 18, for pre-marital sexual intercourse, he not only advocated her conviction but he also went and put the noose around her neck. I do not know about noble Lords, but I personally find that detestable. It is meet to be detested, and should be by every single person in this Chamber. What this Bill could do—although I am obviously open to correction—is to say that I could be prosecuted for saying that it was a detestable habit and that the man who did it was an odious human being. I would say that with intent, and mean every single word. I give that as one example.
	At Second Reading, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that religion had actually been defined. Now there is, as we know through evidence of it, a religion involving witchcraft and the mutilation of small boys. Their torsos were thrown into the Thames. I know that these things are illegal, but it seems odd to me that I cannot hate them. I may have misinterpreted the Bill; I may have it all wrong. But I am advised that I have not. Can the Minister clear my mind, and either accept the amendment or something like it in whatever form the Bill takes? Or can she explain to me that there is no such provision in the Bill and that I am quite entitled to go on hating Shia clerics who pull the legs of young girls dangling in a noose outside Tehran? I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I assure the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, that disagreeing with and robustly criticising practices which one finds abhorrent are not prohibited by this Bill. That is a point we have tried to make in the past, but it has not been entirely accepted. The noble Earl will know that, as a result of the passing today of Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, we now have a very different structure. It is of course not for me to speak to those amendments and the effect of them. However, from the speeches we have already had, both the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Lord, Lord Lester, would say that their amended Schedule would deal with the issue and that it would not arise.
	I find myself in an interesting position. I am no longer able to answer in the way I would have hitherto, because I have to pay due and proper regard to the expression of opinion given in this House. That means that those parts of the Bill to which the amendment now refers are no longer going to be in it.

The Earl of Onslow: In that case, I seek some assistance. Either the amendment is out of order completely, or if it is not, then the Minister must be able to reply to it. Or do I have it wrong? I quite accept that I am confused.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I can reply to it, and could do so at some length. My worry is that I may incur the wrath of other noble Lords who will know that we shall come back to this issue at Report. I am happy to try to give the reassurance that the noble Earl seeks in terms of how the Bill was initially constructed.
	It is right that individuals should be free robustly to criticise those practices which they find abhorrent, whether or not they are justified by others on the basis of their faith. However, I have argued in the past that amendments to this effect are wholly unnecessary. The thresholds in the Bill are sufficiently high to ensure that the condemnation of gender inequality, human rights and other abuses—when justified on religious grounds—will not be captured by the offences.
	Under existing legislation, it is an offence to incite hatred of groups, whether at home or abroad, defined by reference to race or nationality. It is therefore an offence to incite hatred against Israelis, Palestinians, Japanese or any other nationality. If the concerns of the Bill's opponents were correct—and it is impossible to distinguish between robust criticisms of belief, practices and policies on the one hand and inciting hatred of people or communities on the other hand—then we would, by now, have seen a suppression or chilling of free and robust debate about the Middle East, or condemnation of the actions of Japan during the Second World War, and many other circumstances I could mention. Obviously, this simply has not occurred.
	In relation to racial hatred, in order to ensure that the benchmark is appropriately high, there is the need to have the Attorney-General's approval before making any such reference. It is right that that was so before the passing of the Human Rights Act , with its strengthened expression of what had, before then, been common law issues. There is no reason whatever to believe that the extension of protection to groups of people defined by their religious belief—or lack of such belief—will work any differently.
	If it were not for the serious negative effect of the current amendment, we would probably be content to accept it. However, we can be in no doubt that extremists in this country are adept at dodging the law. By creating an exemption for specified activities, we would simply be inviting the extremists to dress up their words and behaviour as legitimate criticisms. We have had evidence of the way in which they have done that in relation to our current legislation. They receive acute advice, and tend to fly as close to the wind as they possibly can without involving the wrath of the criminal justice system.
	We also believe that the potential harm of this amendment outweighs its potential benefits. The thresholds contained in the Bill are, despite the arguments on the other side, very high. The Bill, and the wider criminal justice system, already includes safeguards which ensure that unmeritorious prosecutions are not to take place. We have the evidential tests applied by the CPS and the Attorney-General's consent, to which I have already referred. For those reasons, we resist the amendments. However, as I said earlier, the Government are very sensitive to the concerns being expressed around the Committee. I had expressed a willingness to look at these issues before we came back on Report. The Committee decided that I would not be given that advantage and I, of course, accept that.

Lord Hunt of Wirral: I will not respond in detail, but I do not agree with what the Minister just said. In fact, under the Bill as now amended, my noble friend's point, which is well taken, would clearly be covered by new Section 29J in the newly amended form, which would enable him to continue to condemn those outrageous practices

The Earl of Onslow: Provided that stays in the Bill, I am happy, but it is extraordinarily odd that those odious practices should be allowed in any way to be defended. I find that deeply repellent. Having said that, if that is now covered in the Bill as amended, I am delighted to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
	In the Schedule [Hatred against persons on racial or religious grounds]:

Viscount Colville of Culross: moved Amendment No. 4:
	Page 3, line 6, at end insert—
	"2A Where a person is accused of an offence under section 18, 19, 20, 21 or 22 of the Public Order Act 1986, it shall be a defence, in addition to the defences set out in section 18(4), 19(2), 20(2), 21(3) or 22(3) of that Act, to prove that the words or conduct were, or, as the case may be, the material published, distributed, presented, shown, played or broadcast was, reasonable."

Viscount Colville of Culross: I shall move the amendment briefly, because it will not be pre-empted until later this evening. I have now been trying to deal with this point for the best part of a year and the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, knows perfectly well what the point is. I am concerned about how the Human Rights Act will be dealt with in the Crown Court—or, I suppose, the magistrate's court, although more likely the Crown Court. I raised this matter when we discussed the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill and the noble Baroness, who had many things to deal with that evening, did not closely address my question. I raised it last Tuesday, when the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said that he would write to me, which he did not; but I accept the apology that he gave me yesterday.
	However, today there come two documents, one of which is the guidance, which tells me nothing that I did not know—for instance, that the courts must apply the law and not Home Office guidance. There is also the generalised letter which I think several Members of the Committee have received, which says that there are thresholds for these offences which, if you look at the footnote, in fact turn out merely to be the elements that the prosecution must prove. I am not concerned with the prosecution; I am concerned with the defence; what will be said to the jury; and the decisions that the jury must take.
	It is inevitable, with an offence that carries as large a penalty as does this, that defence counsel will address the Human Rights Act points. I am not entirely sure, even now, that new Section 29J covers all the human rights points that may arise. It deals with Article 10, but I have a feeling that Articles 9, 7 and 14 may also be involved. What I have never been told is what the Government see as being the process whereby, if the defence raises that issue, the judge in the Crown Court will direct the jury when it comes to his summing up.
	He will have to explain to them a number of articles that may have been raised by the defence, especially Article 10(2). He will leave the jury to decide the balance between what might have been proved to have been a fairly unpleasant collection of words or material otherwise displayed and, on the other hand, the protection that is given in Article 10(2) on the grounds of protecting the rights and freedoms of others. That will not be easy for juries to grasp. What is more, when they have come to their decision—which will be either that they convict or that they acquit—there will be no way of knowing why they reached that decision.
	Therefore, unless something goes seriously wrong and the matter is taken to the Court of Appeal, we will never have any case law built up that enables judges in future correctly to direct the jury. That is the point that I have been trying to get the Home Office to answer. So far, it has completely failed to do so. I hope that the noble Baroness may be able to help me this evening. I beg to move.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: I support the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, in his amendment suggesting that reasonableness should be a defence. I hope that I will be able to give the noble Baroness an opportunity to answer the question posed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. I would not be so impertinent as to repeat it if he were in his place, but he is not and she did not seem to have the opportunity to answer it previously.
	The position arises like this. It ties in with the question on which I am sure the noble Baroness would like to say more—it would certainly be helpful to the Committee if she could—of whether it is sufficient, as the Committee indicated that it does not think that it is, that something should be merely likely to stir up racial hatred rather than be intended to stir up racial hatred. If one takes the example of what the Prime Minister said after the bombings of 7 July, which, in my view, was entirely reasonable, he said that religious teaching that encouraged the bombings was vicious and appalling. I do not believe that the Prime Minister intended thereby to stir up racial hatred. I feel confident myself that he had no such thought in his mind. On the other hand, his comment was entirely reasonable in the circumstances. Nonetheless it may well have been likely to stir up some people to hate those who had carried out those vicious and appalling acts as a result of what my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay called their perverted religious beliefs.
	In those circumstances, it seems that the Bill as it stood prior to the amendment passed by the Committee about an hour ago—the Bill as proposed by the Government—renders those words an offence and that the only thing that would stand between that offence and prosecution would be the opinion of the Attorney-General. That is not a satisfactory way to avoid such an event, because the Attorney-General must be no respecter of persons in these matters. He must be entirely even-handed. Of course he must look at all the circumstances, but we must not pass a law that contains defects that leave only that as a safeguard. I should be most grateful if, when she comes to reply, the noble Baroness could reply to those questions, which I have, I hope, articulated clearly enough.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: I rise only—because we obviously want to hear what my noble friend on the Front Bench will say about issues raised—to say that my submission would be that the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, will surely best be dealt with in discussions that I understand may well take place, because they relate to the Bill as unamended. In fact, we have passed the amendments and this debate will be prolonged too much if we discuss the Bill as if it had not been amended. I entirely agree with him that enormous problems would have arisen, which is why many of us wanted the offence on religious belief to be constricted to intention and real incitement.
	As for the noble Viscount, his point is so important and is not made off the cuff—he has been trying to make it for a long time—that my noble friend on the Front Bench must have had adequate notice and it will be very valuable indeed to know what is the Government's response in respect of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I shall certainly seek to deal with the point raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. I am happy to deal with the point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, but it is difficult to discuss provisions that have now been removed from the Bill. As I indicated earlier, the Government had wanted to listen to the nature of the debate, to consider the issues between now and Report and then return with a well considered response to those issues. That would have been my preference. Bearing in mind that I must be aware that the Committee has expressed its overwhelming position, I do not know how much utility there is in me dealing with all those points that may or may not need to be dealt with depending on what we do between now and Report, or between now and the Bill going to the other place. That is why I am reluctant to enter into a big debate on this at the moment. If the Committee were content with that, I could certainly deal with the point raised by the noble Viscount. I would be happy, if we could resolve the final view between now and Report, to write to noble Lords about that position. Perhaps that would be an adequate way of dealing with the matter.

The Earl of Onslow: We have now got ourselves into the most awful muddle. I regret to say that it seems to me to be totally the fault of the noble Baroness. If she had shown more give over the earlier amendment, we could have had a much more structured debate on the rest of the Bill. But she did not. She behaved like those noble 300 Spartans at the pass of Thermopylae. Exactly the same happened: she was overwhelmed by hordes of Persians who, according to the latest book, were very civilised. The Minister is now saying that she is going to give, which she did not say before. I suggest that that is why we are in this muddle.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Perhaps I may respectfully say—I know the noble Earl is never intentionally unfair—that that is unfair. I tried to make it plain—I do not believe I failed to do so although, having heard what the noble Earl has said, I may have—that I was not in a position to put forward amendments, that I was listening very carefully, and that I would come back to the House on Report. I was responding to comments made by a number of noble Lords, not least some on my own Benches—my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis, to name but one—who said, "Why don't you give the Government a chance to come back on Report?", which I said I was happy to do.
	If we had not voted, but had withdrawn to come back another day, we would have proceeded to debate each and everyone of these amendments. At the end of the Committee stage, the Committee having done that which it normally does—namely, consider the Bill piece by piece, amendment by amendment—the Government would have had an opportunity for mature reflection and then we would have had a chance, on Report, to consider our respective final positions.
	I do not complain at all about the Committee deciding, a little unusually, to divide and therefore deny us that opportunity. I accept it. With respect, it is a little hard now to be told that it is my fault that we cannot have reasoned debate in a way that I had proposed in the first place.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: We think that it is completely unfair to criticise the way in which the Minister or her colleagues have behaved. If the Government had been able to show us the colour of their money at any time before this evening, we would not have divided. I understand that for certain reasons they have not been able to. We now have a framework and as we have voted early in the process, the Government have plenty of time to consider improving the Bill in consultation with us. Frankly, all the amendments now being considered do not need to be discussed—although, if people insist, they have a right to do so—because they fall away as we now have a proper framework. The only one that might need to be discussed, although I pray that it will not be, is the one on blasphemy. Therefore, it seems to me that we are taking up parliamentary time unnecessarily by going through all these other variations that would have arisen only if we had not passed the main amendment.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I respectfully agree with that. I am trying to honour the Committee's decision and not ignore it, which I am normally told is good practice. If one does not take your Lordships seriously, one usually pays for it in a most unpleasant way.
	I shall deal with the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, because he is probably right to say that he has not been shown the courtesy that we would normally show in dealing with such matters. I am very happy to deal with it because it is slightly more discrete. I understand the noble Viscount's concern about the courts. I understand his concern about the way in which the Human Rights Act will bite. I shall try to add a little clarity.
	As the Committee will know, on the face of every Bill there is a statement made in accordance with Section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act that the contents of the Bill are compatible, or are proposed to be compatible, with the Human Rights Act. Therefore, when the courts of England and Wales construe any such Act with such a compatibility statement, it is incumbent on all those authorities to construe any Act which is so passed by Government in a way that is consistent with, and not contradictory of, the Human Rights Act 1998. For that reason it has often been argued that it is not necessary expressly to import each and every article contained in the European Convention on Human Rights because it is there in the Human Rights Act.
	A reason why people have been reluctant to see individual articles referred to in any given Bill is that one may make an assumption that those articles are either pre-eminent or predominant or in some way to be given a greater significance than any other article, which would not be correct. The legal obligation that will be placed on authorities to apply the new offence in a manner that is compatible with rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, which includes the freedom of thought, conscience and religion under Article 9, which has been held to include the right to proselytise and the freedom of expression under Article 10, remains.
	We have had a debate about whether, notwithstanding the fact that that is the case, we should have a declaratory statement on the face of Bills. I have said that we shall consider that. If this Bill were to enter into law in the same way as every other Bill, a series of things would be likely to happen, first, in relation to the implementation, once the date is acknowledged. There would probably be training provided by the Judicial Studies Board. It is usual for the Bench Book, which many Members will know about, to contain specimen directions to assist a judge in how he or she must express those directions so that they are compatible and clear. All the usual procedures that bite in relation to every Bill are likely to apply to this Bill too. I understand why the noble Lord says that it may cause difficulty, but it has not caused difficulty in the past and we shall be able to address those issues in a practical way.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: Perhaps I misunderstood the noble Baroness; I should be interested to know whether the noble Lord, Lord Lester, thinks it worth while for me to make a brief comment. I understand the noble Baroness to be saying that because the Human Rights Act would put something right, it does not matter that it is not expressed in the Bill. But I have in mind a case which may also have been in the thoughts of the noble Lord, Lord Lester. I refer to a case involving hundreds of lorry drivers. For some years, Customs and Excise, using Home Office legislation, would detain them, fine them very large sums and so forth until the relevant Act was struck down in the law courts. That Act was not satisfactory legislation. I cannot believe that that is how this Bill is intended to be construed. Further, the noble Baroness has not explained why either the addition of the word "reasonable" in the way suggested by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, or her refusal to accept such an addition, would or would not help the position. I would be most grateful for a little further enlightenment.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: The word is unnecessary. I have made it plain that I do not seek to argue the new construct put forward by the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Lester, but I am sure they will say that if their amendment were to stand, all of this would fall away. We will have to debate these issues more keenly, particularly when we know whether the Government are able to produce any further thinking or whether we will maintain our current position. So, for tonight, we will have what some may consider a not entirely fruitful debate because we are not dealing with a situation that is now the position in which we find ourselves. The debate is much more theoretical in nature.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: I rise to support my noble friend. We cannot legislate across the Chamber tonight. Let us be wholly practical. To that end, I want to ask one question about the future. I am sorry to do so without giving notice to my noble friend, but perhaps she will respond by saying that she will write to me.
	Everything depends on the Government's decision: what they can offer the House after the amendments have been agreed with such a large majority. While I pre-judge nothing, if a government proposal on how we might reach a consensus on this Bill were to be produced, at least in outline, can my noble friend assure us that it would not be produced on the day before it is considered on Report? It should be issued with a few days' notice; that is reasonable. Many of us will need that time to study it, particularly if it turns out to be perhaps the most important document of all. I appreciate that my noble friend may not be able to commit herself to a precise period of time, but can we have an assurance that any document would be made available at a reasonable point before Report so that it can be studied with the care it would deserve?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I can assure my noble friend that we will do all we can to deal with this matter expeditiously, but noble Lords will know that given that this matter has been taken out wholesale in Committee, there are certain difficulties attached to our tabling amendments in a way which would deal with the whole issue. Perhaps I may give an example. I turn to the provision referring to abusive and insulting language. At the moment the Government feel that it would be difficult to see how any new construct could not include those two elements, but that there may be things we can do with other elements which would make their retention more acceptable. But bearing in mind that the Committee has expressed its view by removing the clause in its entirety and substituting it with "threaten", it is impossible for me to bring back on Report the whole of the Government's view.
	I speak in entirely practical terms. We shall look at the final position as it is when the Bill is returned to the Commons as opposed to here. If we had not voted in Committee, it would have been easier to see how the Government's case in its entirety could be put on Report. We could then have had a debate on the difference between the construct of the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Lester, and any new construct which the Government might be able to put together. I say "might" because all this needs to be thought about to see whether it is possible. So I cannot assure my noble friend that by Report we shall be able to do all that we would like. All I can say is that we will use our best endeavours to give as clear an indication as we can of the Government's thinking and the direction of our travel as early as conceivably possible.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: I hesitate to raise this again with my noble friend, but I am very disappointed with her reply. It is perfectly possible for the Government to table any amendments they wish. There is no problem about that. Just as it is not the fault of the noble Baroness that we are where we are, it is also not the fault of those who properly moved amendments and divided the Committee on them. That has been the practice of your Lordships' House for many decades. The notion that we should not divide in Committee and that there is something faulty about pressing amendments to a Division is one that my noble friend may not have meant to imply but one that some noble Lords have understood.
	I seek to make a very minor point, but it is one that matters. If the Government are going to produce anything, can we have it at a reasonable time before Report, or, if it is extended to Third Reading, can we have it a week before?

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: I wonder if I can be of positive help here. If the Government were root and branch opposed to the amendments that have been moved today, I agree that nothing could be done. They would be wedded to their old Bill. It would be returned to the Commons and it would come back here with threats of invoking the Parliament Act. It would be a general against-the-public-interest disaster.
	However, within the framework that we have built this evening—and we have done so only because we have had no consultation even though we were promised it; I do not feel at all guilty about having to press the amendment—there is no reason why we should not take the free speech guarantee as a series of examples and then at the end add the words, "in breach of the convention rights". In that way we would combine the necessary examples given by the Home Office, but they would be rooted in the convention. There is no reason why that could not be done. It would be perfectly simple and would build on what has already been done. The "intent" provision could remain just as it is. On the issue of "threatening" and "insulting", I agree that it could not be done by itself on Report because it would go against the wishes of the House. If the Government insisted on it, it would be sent back to the Commons—which is, after all, the other place in which one legislates—and it would then come back again. In that way, both Houses would have acted constructively to build a ship in which we would all want to sail.
	It seems to me that we have made real progress. The Government and the noble Baroness are not sulking because they have not had their way. She knows very well that the big majority vote here will help her to get the Government to do that most difficult thing, one that governments find really hard to do—to move quickly and think hard about what should be done. That is how I see the position and I hope that I have been constructive.

Viscount Colville of Culross: I do not want to get into the mechanics of what is to happen next. Rather, I should like to make two points. First, I thank the noble Baroness for dealing at last with things like the Bench Book and the Judicial Studies Board, about both of which I have asked twice before. I thank her for her response.
	I should like to say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, that I chose the word "reasonable" for a very good purpose. It occurs in Section 5 of the Public Order Act—we are still talking about that Act, no matter in what form this emerges. The Divisional Court has said that it is a formula which imports the articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. So I thought it would be useful to air the matter and to show that the Committee has a means of bringing in these matters in accordance with the judicial guidance that has already been given. It might be useful for the Government because, after all, it has been approved before.
	For the moment, there is no point in continuing with the matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 4A to 7 not moved.]

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: moved Amendment No. 8:
	Page 3, line 20, at beginning insert "in the case of racial hatred,"

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I should like to take the opportunity to say how I suffer from envy and confusion in a very inordinate degree in both respects. Envy for those of your Lordships who have shown such tremendous agility and such a wide vocabulary over the spread of the afternoon; and confusion as to where we have now got to. In that confusion I hope I may be forgiven if I very briefly put down a benchmark of the points I would have made if I were formally now to move the amendments standing in my name.
	The acting Chief Whip ought not to glare at me because she will only prolong my remarks.
	The point I wish to make particularly is that religion is man's attempt—not always very good, but very necessary—to get on better terms with, and have a better understanding of, God. I profoundly believe that politicians and governments would be wise to steer clear of ground on which they are not expert and on which they do not enjoy total authority. They should particularly have in mind that legislation often creates more problems than it solves. They should also, if possible, remember that respect for the views of others sometimes wins more points than simply derision and dismissal.
	The law should be clear and the amendments standing in my name were designed to remedy two particular issues. The words "it is likely to" occur twice in a dozen lines. Paragraph 6(3)(b) of the schedule contains the following words:
	"the material is likely to be seen by any person in whom it is likely to stir up racial or religious hatred".
	I cannot believe that any government ought to be proud of that extremely unclear, ugly and very vague piece of proposed legislation.
	The last point I wish to make—I am very concerned about this—is that the whole aspect of freedom of speech may be washed away in the river of other arguments. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, in moving the Second Reading, made it clear that the Bill would have an impact on freedom of speech, and then went on to say that it was necessary because of a small gap in the law. On that occasion, the noble Lord, Lord Peston, spoke for me when he said that the Lord Chancellor's casual attitude towards freedom of speech really alarmed him. It alarms me.
	I hope the Committee will forgive me for putting down this benchmark outline of the points I wish to make. They matter to me even if they do not matter to the Government. I appreciate that the noble Baroness never fails in her courtesy. I hope she will not regard my intervention tonight as outrageous.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Let me reassure the noble Lord that I have yet ever to find him outrageous. The truth is that the debate we would have had on these issues is, of course, necessarily truncated. I want to reassure the noble Lord that we are very concerned about the whole issue of freedom of speech. If one looks at the issues on which we agree and disagree, one finds that we agree that the issue of racial and religious hatred is very important and that freedom of speech is equally important. The question is: how do we balance it and have we got it right? The debate centres around those issues.
	I can reassure the noble Lord that his passion for freedom of speech is shared by many on all sides of the Houses, and is particularly strongly held by those who sit on these Benches.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: As I have not moved the amendment I will not have to withdraw it.

Lord Haskel: The noble Lord did move the amendment. Is it your Lordships' pleasure that the amendment be withdrawn?

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 9 not moved.]

The Lord Bishop of Southwell: moved Amendment No. 10:
	Page 3, line 23, at end insert—
	"(4) After subsection (5) insert—
	"(5A) In proceedings for an offence under this section it shall be a defence for an accused who is not shown to have intended to stir up religious hatred to prove that the words or behaviour used, or the written material displayed—
	(a) were used or displayed in good faith for the purposes of the discussion, teaching or propagation of religious belief or lack of religious belief; or
	(b) are justified as being for the public good on the ground that it is in the interests of science, literature, art or learning, or of other objects of general concern.""

The Lord Bishop of Southwell: I agree with the rest of the Committee in paying tribute to the Minister for her unfailing courtesy, patience and indulgence through this latter stage of the Committee. I thought it important to put on the public record—as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford and myself have tabled a great tranche of amendments, which of course now fall—the particular concerns we have on some of the matters contained in the amendment standing in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Lester, Lord Hunt and Lord Plant, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey.
	The main amendment, Amendment No. 31, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, has the advantage of clarity and consistency in rewriting the Schedule to differentiate between the offences of racial hatred and religious hatred. I agree with him that the "intention to stir up hatred" should be a necessary element of inciting religious hatred and support the elimination of the "likely" limb which, by its lack of certainty, could leave us hostage to the hyper-sensitive and the trouble-makers. I also agree with him that "insulting" words, behaviour, material and so on provide too low a threshold for the offence but that "threatening" words, behaviour and so on ought to be outlawed. I have a doubt about "abusive", which falls between the other two and sounds as though it ought to be forbidden. However, it may be that the interpretation of what constitutes "religious abuse" is too subjective to make it safe to criminalise it and we should perhaps err on the side of freedom.
	A more substantial doubt arises in relation to—

Lord Avebury: I hope the right reverend Prelate will forgive me for interrupting, but we had an injunction earlier today to bear in mind the need for self-regulation. I think that was a very valuable reminder. Surely if we have self-regulation we cannot go over matters that have already been discussed. The right reverend Prelate is repeating arguments which were addressed to a previous amendment. If not, it is almost a Second Reading speech, and we have heard a few of those today. I beg the right reverend Prelate to bear in mind that we have made changes to the Bill and that he is talking about parts of it which no longer exist.

The Lord Bishop of Southwell: I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, says. Given the enormity and substantive nature of the amendments we have tabled, I thought it was a kind indulgence of the Committee to give me a little space. I shall try not to be unduly repetitive and I will be as brief as possible.
	There were two main tranches of amendments, which I shall withdraw at the end of this short speech. The effect in each case was to remove the "likely" limb and therefore make "intention" a necessary element of the offence. The same effect is achieved—although with much greater elegance, I admit—by the re-written schedule of the noble Lord, Lord Lester. On balance I prefer our way because I believe that Amendment No. 31 runs the risk of unduly narrowing the scope of the offence, but the agreement between us is of more significance than our differences.
	Should that not happen, however, at a later stage, the purpose of these amendments is to neutralise the effects of the "likely" limb if it is allowed to remain. We were going to make a twofold defence. The first defence is that of acting in good faith,
	"for the purposes of discussion, teaching or propagation of religious belief or lack of religious belief".
	This formulation echoes the definition of religious hatred in the new Section 17A of the amended Public Order Act and is designed to safeguard the freedom of both religious and secularist groups to express their opinions and pursue their aims.
	The second defence is modelled on that provided by the Obscene Publications Act 1959; namely, justification for the public good as being in the interests of science, literature, art or learning, or other objects of general concern. I am aware that the public good defence may give rise to problems of interpretation, but taken together I believe the two defences cover much the same ground as the declaratory clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, while excluding from their protection actions taken with the intention of stirring up hatred. I trust we will attend carefully to all the comments made in Committee today. I beg to move.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate. Where in his amendments would one cover ridicule, comedians or the Rowan Atkinson kind of problem? There are things other than artistic and literary merit and religion that are covered by our amendment. I wonder if he has thought about that.

The Lord Bishop of Southwell: The noble Lord is quite right. I believe his amendment is more fully comprehensive and embracing. Having made that point, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 11 to 30 not moved.]

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: moved Amendment No. 31:
	Leave out the Schedule and insert the following new Schedule—
	"SCHEDULE
	HATRED AGAINST PERSONS ON RELIGIOUS GROUNDS
	In the Public Order Act 1986 (c. 64), after Part 3 insert—
	"PART 3A HATRED AGAINST PERSONS ON RELIGIOUS GROUNDS
	Meaning of "religious hatred"
	29A Meaning of "religious hatred"
	In this Part "religious hatred" means hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief.
	Acts intended to stir up religious hatred
	29B Use of words or behaviour or display of written material
	(1) A person who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred.
	(2) An offence under this section may be committed in a public or a private place, except that no offence is committed where the words or behaviour are used, or the written material is displayed, by a person inside a dwelling and are not heard or seen except by other persons in that or another dwelling.
	(3) A constable may arrest without warrant anyone he reasonably suspects is committing an offence under this section.
	(4) In proceedings for an offence under this section it is a defence for the accused to prove that he was inside a dwelling and had no reason to believe that the words or behaviour used, or the written material displayed, would be heard or seen by a person outside that or any other dwelling.
	(5) This section does not apply to words or behaviour used, or written material displayed, solely for the purpose of being included in a programme service.
	29C Publishing or distributing written material
	(1) A person who publishes or distributes written material which is threatening is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred.
	(2) References in this Part to the publication or distribution of written material are to its publication or distribution to the public or a section of the public.
	29D Public performance of play
	(1) If a public performance of a play is given which involves the use of threatening words or behaviour, any person who presents or directs the performance is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred.
	(2) This section does not apply to a performance given solely or primarily for one or more of the following purposes—
	(a) rehearsal,
	(b) making a recording of the performance, or
	(c) enabling the performance to be included in a programme service;
	but if it is proved that the performance was attended by persons other than those directly connected with the giving of the performance or the doing in relation to it the things mentioned in paragraph (b) or (c), the performance shall, unless the contrary is shown, be taken not to have given solely or primarily for the purpose mentioned above.
	(3) For the purposes of this section—
	(a) a person shall not be treated as presenting a performance of a play by reason only of his taking part in it as a performer,
	(b) a person taking part as a performer in a performance directed by another shall be treated as a person who directed the performance if without reasonable excuse he performs otherwise than in accordance with that person's direction, and
	(c) a person shall be taken to have directed a performance of a play given under his direction notwithstanding that he was not present during the performance;
	and a person shall not be treated as aiding or abetting the commission of an offence under this section by reason only of his taking part in a performance as a performer.
	(4) In this section "play" and "public performance" have the same meaning as in the Theatres Act 1968.
	(5) The following provisions of the Theatres Act 1968 apply in relation to an offence under this section as they apply to an offence under section 2 of that Act—
	section 9 (script as evidence of what was performed),
	section 10 (power to make copies of script),
	section 15 (powers of entry and inspection).
	29E Distributing, showing or playing a recording
	(1) A person who distributes, or shows or plays, a recording of visual images or sounds which are threatening is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred.
	(2) In this Part "recording" means any record from which visual images or sounds may, by any means, be reproduced; and references to the distribution, showing or playing of a recording are to its distribution, showing or playing to the public or a section of the public.
	(3) This section does not apply to the showing or playing of a recording solely for the purpose of enabling the recording to be included in a programme service.
	29F Broadcasting or including programme in cable programme service
	(1) If a programme involving threatening visual images or sounds is included in a programme service, each of the persons mentioned in subsection (2) is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred.
	(2) The persons are—
	(a) the person providing the programme service,
	(b) any person by whom the programme is produced or directed, and
	(c) any person by whom offending words or behaviour are used.
	Inflammatory material
	29G Possession of inflammatory material
	(1) A person who has in his possession written material which is threatening, or a recording of visual images or sounds which are threatening, with a view to—
	(a) in the case of written material, its being displayed, published, distributed, or included in a programme service whether by himself or another, or
	(b) in the case of a recording, its being distributed, shown, played, or included in a programme service, whether by himself or another,
	is guilty of an offence if he intends religious hatred to be stirred up thereby.
	(2) For this purpose regard shall be had to such display, publication, distribution, showing, playing, or inclusion in a programme service as he has, or it may reasonably be inferred that he has, in view.
	29H Powers of entry and search
	(1) If in England and Wales a justice of the peace is satisfied by information on oath laid by a constable that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that a person has possession of written material or a recording in contravention of section 29G, the justice may issue a warrant under his hand authorising any constable to enter and search the premises where it is suspected the material or recording is situated.
	(2) If in Scotland a sheriff or justice of the peace is satisfied by evidence on oath that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that a person has possession of written material or a recording in contravention of section 29G, the sheriff or justice may issue a warrant authorising any constable to enter and search the premises where it is suspected the material or recording is situated.
	(3) A constable entering or searching premises in pursuance of a warrant issued under this section may use reasonable force if necessary.
	(4) In this section "premises" means any place and, in particular, includes—
	(a) any vehicle, vessel, aircraft or hovercraft,
	(b) any offshore installation as defined in section 12 of the Mineral Workings (Offshore Installations) Act 1971, and
	(c) any tent or movable structure.
	29I Power to order forfeiture
	(1) A court by or before which a person is convicted of—
	(a) an offence under section 29B relating to the display of written material, or
	(b) an offence under section 29C, 29E or 29G,
	shall order to be forfeited any written material or recording produced to the court and shown to its satisfaction to be written material or a recording to which the offence relates.
	(2) An order made under this section shall not take effect—
	(a) in the case of an order made in proceedings in England and Wales, until the expiry of the ordinary time within which an appeal may be instituted or, where an appeal is duly instituted, until it is finally decided or abandoned;
	(b) in the case of an order made in proceedings in Scotland, until the expiration of the time within which, by virtue of any statute, an appeal may be instituted or, where such an appeal is duly instituted, until the appeal is finally decided or abandoned.
	(3) For the purposes of subsection (2)(a)—
	(a) an application for a case stated or for leave to appeal shall be treated as the institution of an appeal, and
	(b) where a decision on appeal is subject to a further appeal, the appeal is not finally determined until the expiry of the ordinary time within which a further appeal may be instituted or, where a further appeal is duly instituted, until the further appeal is finally decided or abandoned.
	(4) For the purposes of subsection (2)(b) the lodging of an application for a stated case or note of appeal against sentence shall be treated as the institution of an appeal.
	29J Protection of freedom of expression
	Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system.
	Supplementary provisions
	29K Savings for reports of parliamentary or judicial proceedings
	(1) Nothing in this Part applies to a fair and accurate report of proceedings in Parliament or in the Scottish Parliament.
	(2) Nothing in this Part applies to a fair and accurate report of proceedings publicly heard before a court or tribunal exercising judicial authority where the report is published contemporaneously with the proceedings or, if it is not reasonably practicable or would be unlawful to publish a report of them contemporaneously, as soon as publication is reasonably practicable and lawful.
	29L Procedure and punishment
	(1) No proceedings for an offence under this Part may be instituted in England and Wales except by or with the consent of the Attorney General.
	(2) For the purposes of the rules in England and Wales against charging more than one offence in the same count or information, each of sections 29B to 29G creates one offence.
	(3) A person guilty of an offence under this part is liable—
	(a) on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years or a fine or both;
	(b) on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both.
	29M Offences by corporations
	(1) Where a body corporate is guilty of an offence under this Part and it is shown that the offence was committed with the consent or connivance of a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body, or a person purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate is guilty of the offence and liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.
	(2) Where the affairs of a body corporate are managed by its members, subsection (1) applies in relation to the acts and defaults of a member in connection with his functions of management as it applies to a director.
	29N Interpretation
	In this Part—
	"distribute", and related expressions, shall be construed in accordance with section 29C(2) (written material) and section 29E(2) (recordings);
	"dwelling" means any structure or part of a structure occupied as a person's home or other living accommodation (whether the occupation is separate or shared with others) but does not include any part not so occupied, and for this purpose "structure" includes a tent, caravan, vehicle, vessel or other temporary or movable structure;
	"programme" means any item which is included in a programme service;
	"programme service" has the same meaning as in the Broadcasting Act 1990;
	"publish", and related expressions, in relation to written material, shall be construed in accordance with section 29C(2);
	"religious hatred" has the meaning given by section 29A;
	"recording" has the meaning given by section 29E(2), and "play" and "show", and related expressions, in relation to a recording, shall be construed in accordance with that provision;
	"written material" includes any sign or other visible representation.""
	On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 2 [Consequential amendment: powers of arrest]:

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: moved Amendment No. 32:
	Page 1, line 11, after "3" insert "or 3A"
	On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
	[Amendments Nos. 33 and 34 not moved.]
	Clause 3 agreed to.
	House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.

Social Security Benefits Up-rating Regulations 2005

Baroness Greengross: rose to move to resolve, That this House regrets that the Government have not considered uprating the state pension rights of all United Kingdom citizens living abroad in the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Regulations 2005, laid before the House on 18 March (S.I. 2005/632).

Baroness Greengross: My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Cheltenham, has chosen to make his maiden speech this evening in support of this issue. When in the other place, his commitment to those who were vulnerable through no fault of their own was manifest, as was his belief in social justice. I hope that he will speak immediately after my introduction, because this Motion is about social justice.
	It is a Motion of Regret, and it is with great regret, disappointment and some anger that I move it. Those feelings are shared by many in the House and many in the other place—66 MPs, the same as the Government's majority in the recent election, have signed Early Day Motion No. 366 in support—as well as among the general public, the media and especially those who are affected by the freezing of the state pension—about half a million of our citizens. We all know that if the Select Committee on Social Security's recommendation in their 1996 report that there be a free vote had actually happened, the policy would have changed. I sometimes feel that it is only the DWP that is wedded to it now.
	We all know what the issue is: the refusal of Her Majesty's Government to change their policy to uprate the state pension earned by all our citizens, wherever they live, on an equal basis. The so-called state pension freezing affects an arbitrary group of British citizens, and it is the arbitrariness that is really the trouble. They are people who happen to live largely in Commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada, as well as a host of other, smaller nations including, perhaps most poignantly of all at the moment, Zimbabwe.
	Imagine two brothers living in this country who fought in the Second World War and who decided to emigrate when their wives died because the children, one set living in Canada and the other in the USA, asked them to go and live with them and the grandchildren. The brother who went to Seattle, near the US border, has had his pension uprated every year. The one who lives just over the border in Canada has never had his pension uprated. Just imagine what he feels.
	Think of the woman about whom I received a letter—Molly in Australia. She drove ambulances during the war, worked in France and then in Germany during the war, is a double amputee now living in Australia and surviving on the 1986 level of state pension. That is grossly unfair. I know that the Minister will say the Government won the Carson case before the Law Lords, so the current policy is legal. It is legal, but that case was about human rights, not whether the policy was right, logical or relevant today. One of the judges, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell, delivered a devastating indictment of the policy, which I am sure other speakers will mention. He said:
	"Once it is accepted that pensions should be paid to contributing pensioners resident abroad, then no justification remains for paying some less than others and less than UK residents".
	However, the Minister should not take too much comfort from the Law Lords' judgment either. In effect, the other four judges were not saying that the Government's policy was fine and dandy, but that it was not a matter for them—it is a matter of government policy.
	One of the Law Lords said that the people who went abroad when they retired should have known that their pensions were going to be frozen. We all know that hardly anyone in this country understands our pension system. If you have been bereaved and made a decision to join your family in another country, with all the upheaval and difficulty involved, will you really be thinking, "I must bear in mind that my pension will be frozen"?
	The Government should change their policy because it is the right thing to do. It also affects our friendly relationship with certain other countries such as Australia, where an Australian minister, Senator Patterson, recently said that,
	"the UK Government's policy is . . . unfair and it should recognise the compelling moral arguments for paying UK pensioners their proper entitlements".
	The Minister may say that that has been the policy since 1948, but, if the policy is right, why are almost half the pensioners who went abroad uprated? I know it is about agreements, but this is about fairness. The Government need to consider it seriously. I know that it will be expensive, but it does not mean that it is not the right thing to do. The end of the Carson case means that the Government will probably never have to backdate uprating claims now, so why not review the policy and target only those people in greatest need? Perhaps that could include the oldest; those who worked in the UK and then retired after a full working life and went abroad to be with their children; people who were misled into making voluntary additional contributions, not realising that their pension would be frozen; and people who were not given the whole picture by the Department for Work and Pensions. It is still not clear in the literature that pension freezing applies in some countries. That would be a lot cheaper than the overall enormous figure that the Minister will no doubt quote to me.
	I know that the Government's priority is UK-based pensions—I know that they come first—but there is the huge amount of spending that the Government have already committed to pensioners, and the pension credit is an example of that. I understand that it is a regulation that protects retiring civil servants and Ministers from state pension freezing, but that is really even more grossly unfair, especially at the moment when the pensions of civil servants are so much in the news. The Minister may say that British pensioners do not contribute to our economy, but they do; they save a lot of money for the UK economy and contribute as much as the 462,000 UK pensioners who receive uprated state pensions. Perhaps the Minister could say what the difference is between all those people.
	I want to end by paying tribute to the people who campaign on the issue. They do it at their own expense and at a great distance and are really the David to the Government's Goliath. Many are very elderly themselves, but they are fighting about principle. They contributed to a British state pension, and successive governments made a great thing about that contributory principle. They see their state pensions as deferred earnings, and as something to which they are entitled, and it is high time that the Government looked again at their inflexible stance, especially as we are 60 years from the end of World War II. It would be great if the Minister would resolve the issue, and I hope that he will tell your Lordships that he will take personal charge to do that and discuss with his ministerial colleagues—including the Prime Minister and the Chancellor—how he will do something to remove this terrible unfairness and injustice. I beg to move to resolve.
	Moved to resolve, That this House regrets that the Government have not considered uprating the state pension rights of all United Kingdom citizens living abroad in the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Regulations 2005, laid before the House on 18 March (S.I. 2005/632).—(Baroness Greengross.)

Lord Jones of Cheltenham: My Lords, it is with some trepidation that I speak for the first time in this House after spending the past 13 years in another place, and I hope that noble Lords will be tolerant as I learn the ropes. I particularly want to thank all those who have been so kind and helped me during the first few tentative weeks that I have spent here. In the short time that I have been here, I have admired the extraordinary array of talent and experience on these Benches—per head, probably one of the finest gatherings of brain power in the world.
	I do not believe that I was regarded as something of a rebel in the other place, but I regard it as suspicious that two of my former Chief Whips joined the House at the same time as I did, no doubt to keep an eye on my activities. The noble Lords, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope and Lord Tyler, dealt cautiously with me in the other place, and I hope to receive the same sort of treatment from my new Chief Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland, and his assistants—although I am deeply suspicious of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, who shares an office with me.
	A couple of years ago, my cardiologist, who was Welsh, told me that if I carried on with what he called, "This 80-hour week lark", I would be taken out in a box. He suggested, "Something more gentle". I do not know whether he had this House in mind or whether he used his influence with the powers that be, who decide who enters this House; but I must say that things seem to be more gentle at this end of the corridor so far.
	I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, on securing the debate, and I particularly wanted to contribute because, over the years, I have come across a number of cases showing the effects of this injustice. Surely, it cannot be right that people who have made the same pension contributions should be treated differently because of where they choose to live during their retirement.
	I want to use the example of a lady called June, who used to be one of my constituents in Cheltenham. June's son went to Canada and made his life there; when she retired from work, latterly in the probation service, she had intended to move to Canada to be near to, but not to live with or to be dependent on, her son and his family. Then she found out about the frozen pensions rule. She imagined that it was an administrative glitch and that Parliament would soon sort it out—so she waited. The rule did not change, so after almost a decade of frustration she went to Canada anyway because, as she told me, "I shall be dead if I do not go". She is now nearly 80 and tells me that she rarely eats meat. She does not want to be a burden on her son and his family and, like many other British citizens in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries, she is angry about being cheated out of what she sees as her proper pension. As she points out, if her son had made his life in the USA or the Costa Brava, she would not be penalised by such improper treatment. Instead of being good ambassadors for Britain, those people are bitter at being let down by financial discrimination that they find hard to understand.
	I shall make two further points. First, with regard to pensioners living in overseas British territories it seems bizarre that, except for those living in Bermuda, Gibraltar and the sovereign base areas on Cyprus, pensioners entitled to a British state pension who live in British overseas territories fall foul of the frozen pension rule. When I was in the other place, I tabled a Parliamentary Question asking how many pensioners living in British Overseas Territories were victims of that regulation. The answers, given in a Written Answer on 23 February 2004 were:
	"Anguilla 148 . . . British Virgin Islands 42 . . . Cayman Islands 95 . . . Falkland Islands (including South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands) 37 . . . Montserrat 154 . . . St. Helena and Dependencies 71"—
	that is, including Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, and,
	"Turks and Caicos Islands 15".—[Official Report, Commons, 23/2/04; col. 322W.]
	There are currently none in the British Antarctic Territory, British Indian Ocean Territory or Pitcairn Island, although last week I met the commissioner from Pitcairn Island, who tells me that he will be caught by the regulations. That makes a total of 562 people. In the two other British Overseas Territories where the pension is not frozen, in Bermuda and Gibraltar, a total of 1,454 received the annual uprating of their pensions. So almost three-quarters of those who qualify living in overseas territories are treated properly.
	I also asked what it would cost to unfreeze those pensions without paying arrears; the estimate for the year 2003–04 was less than £500,000. So I suggest that the Government consider unfreezing pensions for all those living in British Overseas Territories as soon as possible. They are British, they live on British soil, and the cost in Treasury terms would be the equivalent of loose change.
	Finally, I want to make a suggestion to the Government that, I believe, will help with their proper desire to make poverty history, and in particular to help the people of Africa. There are pensioners in this country who have skills that would be valuable to countries in Africa and to all developing countries, if only they could be persuaded to spend their active retirement in those developing countries. Unfortunately, the prospect of their state pension being frozen will deter many people who might otherwise choose to do that. Importantly, there are some countries that are facing population loss, mainly because of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Botswana, for example, according to a population projection in the latest update to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, may lose a quarter of its population in the next 15 years. President Mogae of Botswana is actively encouraging experienced citizens from the UK and elsewhere to go and help his country and, incidentally, to live in a civilised environment with lovely people. Abolishing the frozen pensions rule would give British citizens the choice of spending their retirement making a real difference.
	I believe that the Government should produce up-to-date estimates of how much it would cost to put right the injustice of all frozen pensions. There is a prize awaiting the government who sort out the problem. As British citizens, those who suffer from frozen pensions have votes in British parliamentary elections. Those votes could swing the result of tight elections. The great civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King once said:
	"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere".
	I urge the Government to look carefully at this injustice and take steps to eradicate it.

Baroness Fookes: My Lords, this is a first for me. Never before have I risen to speak immediately after the delivery of a maiden speech. It is a real pleasure and privilege to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Cheltenham, despite his misgivings, on a speech most fluently delivered, which showed a real knowledge, sympathy and understanding of the plight of expatriates, coupled with some constructive suggestions about how these things may be put right. We shall look forward to his further contributions in this House. I offer him, on behalf of us all, a very warm welcome.
	Like the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, who introduced this debate—we are deeply grateful to her for this opportunity—I have deep regrets. I am not sure that "regrets" really covers how I feel. For many years, both in the other place and here, I have felt strongly and keenly the sheer injustice that is done to those expatriate citizens who happen to live in the wrong country. That is what it amounts to. It is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, said, the arbitrariness of it which is so infuriating. I do not believe that there is any justification, and I hope that no government Minister will seek to take refuge in the judgment against Annette Carson. As was so rightly said, this was on whether human rights had been infringed, and nothing whatever to do with government policy. It is high time that, after many years, the Government put right this injustice. I do not pretend that the Government whom I supported when they were in office were any better on this matter. They can share equal opprobrium on the subject as far as I am concerned.
	It seems to me extraordinary that if some people who go abroad are not to enjoy these rights, others should do so simply because they are members of the European Union, or where there is a reciprocal arrangement. There is no logic in that whatever. It would be harsh, but at least logical, if anyone living abroad was not entitled to an uprating of the pension—not that I am advocating that for one moment. To have some who are and some who are not, however, is quite unjustifiable. The illustration of the Canadian/USA border is extremely apt, and shows to the full the sheer folly of this particular arrangement.
	Of course, it falls far more heavily on those who retired many years ago, when the pension was much less than it is now. Indeed, there was a case—recently, I think—of somebody who died in their 90s, who was receiving a pension of some miserable £6.95 a week. Almost unbelievable. Therefore, those who are very elderly are in a far worse plight than anyone else.
	It is my understanding that this arrangement was intended to be temporary when the government of the day dealt with the uprating of the pensions. I am emboldened in this because, back in 2000 when I had a Question on the subject, there was an intervention by the late Lord Shore of Stepney. It is worth while quoting what he said:
	"My Lords, will my noble friend"—
	this was addressed to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, who then had responsibility for these matters—
	"at least think very hard about this issue? I remember dealing with this matter in Cabinet some years ago. There was never any question but that, morally, our fellow citizens who worked for us here in Britain and who then migrated overseas were entitled to a pension by virtue of their paid-in contributions. We did not update the pension because of the chronic shortage of foreign exchange, but morally the case was clear. When we were controlling capital movement, when tourists could spend only £50 a year abroad, and when all kinds of restrictions faced us, we could not do it, but morally these people have a right to a pension. Will the Government fulfil that obligation at the earliest moment?".—[Official Report, 3/4/00; col. 1082.]
	The reference to the £50 travel restriction takes us back many years. This is a long-standing grievance which needs to be put right.
	I am aware, of course, of the cost. Let us make no mistake about it—it is a matter of cost. This is what has influenced every administration from that time to the present day. I make an alternative suggestion to that of the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Cheltenham. Would it not at least be possible to uprate—not backdate—the pensions from whatever point in time the decision was made, for those aged 80 or over? They are the ones most at risk. I would seriously ask the Government at least to think about this, if they cannot go, as I would wish them to, for total uprating. Then, at least, we would know that those who get frailer and older, who may well be of the war generation, would have some comfort in the last years of their life. I urge at least this compromise upon the Minister tonight.

Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, on bringing this up. It has been a source of annoyance and grief to a whole lot of people. Many people in political life have been trying to make the Government see sense. It is extremely difficult to do that.
	Fortunately, we have some hope on the legal side, in that a very distinguished lawyer, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell, disagreed with the last verdict. The Government have won the last legal case, but it is not a legal case that we are talking about. The noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, put it in a nutshell: it a case of human rights. The human rights issue may well provide some solution. The Government should, however, think of doing something to put this evil right. They would do some good to themselves in so doing.
	The figure quoted by my noble friend Lord Jones of Cheltenham—I think he said £500,000—would upgrade the pensions without paying the money they are due for back pensions, which must cost more. If the Minister would explain this, and agree or disagree, I would be grateful.
	I am a pensioner. I took my pension when I was 70. That, I am afraid, was 16 years ago, but my pension then was £74. It is now over £140. The difference that that would make to someone who has gone abroad, simply to live with his family—which is a right and proper instinct—might be very big indeed.
	The people who are profiting from being paid the rise are mostly people who are quite well off. One can go and live on the beaches of Spain or the French Riviera; one can mingle with the toffs in Tuscany; or one can go and live in Las Vegas, if anyone would desire to do that. Then you get the increase. It is totally illogical. If you live in the Caribbean, as I understand it—and I should like the Minister to confirm this—you get the winter fuel increase of £200. That seems a bit illogical in view of all the good people who get nothing out of it.
	To talk of money is right and proper, and we have to think of it. But to save money for the Treasury from one section, totally unjustly, is quite wrong. If the Treasury has to save that money it should come off all of us from taxation or elsewhere. To save it at the expense of people who go to live with their families in the Commonwealth—people who have supported us in two wars—is quite wrong. The Government must consider not paying a little more but paying the full rate to pensioners who have lived abroad for family reasons as well as giving it to all the people who are rich enough to live in the Caribbean.

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am very pleased indeed that the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, has chosen to raise once again for debate in your Lordships' House the subject of this longstanding injustice to a substantial number of people who have contributed much to the United Kingdom. I am also very pleased that my noble friend Lord Jones of Cheltenham has chosen this debate in which, a little unusually, to make his maiden speech. But it shows that his 13 years of distinguished service to his former constituents in Cheltenham is continuing despite the fact that he is no longer their representative in the lower House of Parliament.
	I believe that any reasonable person would agree that the treatment of pensioners who have gone to live abroad in countries where there is no mutual agreement on pensions is grossly unfair. I think that that belief will only have been reinforced by the specific examples that have been raised this evening by the noble Baroness and by my noble friend. This unfairness dates back to 1975 when the Wilson government were in a terrible mess, had to find spending cuts and had to restrict the outflow of sterling. The uprating of pensions of non-residents was selected as one target for these cuts and restrictions. It had the great attraction, and continues to have the great attraction, that those who suffered from these changes did not have the vote. So they were denied the uprating and they have never had it since despite the great improvements in this country's fiscal situation and the transformation of sterling into one of the strongest currencies in the world.
	Back in 1975 there was no Human Rights Act which gave the victims of this decision an opportunity to challenge it on grounds of discrimination. Following the enactment of the Human Rights Act, a number of overseas pensioners claimed that their treatment was discrimination which was rendered unlawful by the Act. Mrs Carson, who took her case to your Lordships' House, was one of them. I believe profoundly that in rejecting her claim the Appellate Committee of your Lordships' House got it wrong—except, of course, for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell. I do not know whether there is any possibility that this case might be taken from your Lordships' House to Strasbourg. If there is any possibility, I certainly believe that there would be a real chance of victory for Mrs Carson.
	I was my party's spokesman on pensions for some years and became very concerned with this issue. Pensions are a contributory benefit; indeed, they are by far the largest contributory benefit. Not only that; they are by far the largest benefit of any kind in money terms, whether contributory or non-contributory. Contributions are paid into the national insurance fund. The national insurance funds is not a fund like a private pension fund; it is, as I say sometimes, a pipeline and not a reservoir because the year's contributions go to pay the current year's pensioners, not to provide capital for future pensions. But that does not alter the principle, which I believe is that there is an implicit contract between the contributors and the state—not a legal contract, but an understanding that the contributors will make payments, and in return for that the state will pay them a pension. Contributions are payable only if and while the contributor is employed in the United Kingdom, apart from the now fairly numerous occasions when people receive contribution credits without actually paying contributions.
	During the period when they are employed in the United Kingdom, those people will not have been making contributions to foreign state pensions and building up foreign pension rights. The contributors will have been contributing to the United Kingdom economy when they are working here. When they go abroad, they relieve this country of the burden on the National Health Service and the social services, which are very much more expensive for those who have retired than for those who have not yet reached retirement age. This relief far outweighs the fact that pensioners, when they go abroad, do not pay income tax on their pensions.
	The Government have singled them out for the denial of uprating. That means that the value of their pensions goes down in real terms from year to year. There is no possible justification for that. It means that some elderly pensioners who got pensions 20 or 30 years ago in periods of high inflation are now receiving only a tiny fraction of the pension that they would receive if they were still resident in this country.
	The lead speech in the Carson case was given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann. I disagree strongly with the noble and learned Lord's statement in his speech that:
	"There is nothing unfair or irrational about according different treatment to people who live abroad".
	Against that background it is not surprising that he decided against Mrs Carson. He went on to say:
	"The primary function of social security benefits, including state retirement pensions, is to provide a basic standard of living for the inhabitants of the United Kingdom".
	That is only partly true of retirement pensions because, by working in this country and by contributing to the economy, people deprive themselves of the chance of acquiring benefits in other countries. They have rights to UK pensions, which they should be able to take with them when they leave this country, whether they leave before or after reaching retirement age.
	The Government could, of course, say that no pensions should be payable to anybody resident abroad. There are good reasons why the Government do not say that. They would not get overseas workers to come here if they did. It would be an intolerable restriction on the rights of older people to move abroad. Instead they give the full pension that has been earned by the contributors at pension age, and then slice a little bit off year by year. It is death by a thousand cuts. That is not just unfair; it is immoral.

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: My Lords, this is not the easiest debate to answer from this Front Bench. The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, has done us all a great service by raising with all her customary persistence and passion the issue of uprating. We almost always sing from the same hymn sheet in this House, so I thought long and hard about how far I could follow her on this occasion.
	My noble friend and predecessor as Front Bench spokesman, Lord Goodhart, and I also stand shoulder to shoulder on almost every issue. As usual he has put his case with the logic and precision that we always expect. My noble friend Lord Mackie has also spoken with great force.
	My short answer is that I have considerable sympathy with the points that they made, and I shall probe the Government's position as hard as I can. The official position of our party, as set out in our policy paper last year is,
	"to look at whether further reciprocal arrangements could be established with other countries to allow as many pensioners as possible to benefit whilst recognising that a country's first duty is to those who live within its borders".
	It is a particular pleasure to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Jones of Cheltenham in his maiden speech, especially for his tireless work for his former constituents. He was in the front line for democracy in Britain on that dreadful day when he was attacked in his advice centre. He has also done much valuable work for the cause of democracy overseas in election monitoring. I pay particular tribute to him for his moving and focused speech highlighting the problems of the small group of state pension recipients in the British overseas territories. As he pointed out, only Bermuda, Gibraltar and the sovereign base area of Cyprus receive quarterly uprating. In 11 other territories they do not. He quoted £500,000 a year as the estimated cost of unfreezing pensions. Will the Minister either confirm that that is a realistic estimate, or perhaps write to me and the noble Lord, Lord Jones, if he needs to check the figure?
	My noble friend made a particularly strong case for this group. We urge the Government to try much harder to widen uprating by a series of reciprocal arrangements with individual countries. But how realistic is that when we are dealing with tiny islands for which Britain is still largely responsible, such as British Virgin Islands with 47 pensioners, the Falklands with 38 and Ascension Island with just five? With whom would the British Government negotiate a reciprocal agreement when there are only a handful of pensioners? In practice the British Government would be negotiating with themselves. The Minister must consider whether the doctrine of reciprocity would stretch that far, or whether in all the circumstances, UK pensioners in the British overseas territories should not be treated for uprating purposes as if they were still resident in the UK. The cost, as we have heard, would be negligible.
	Cost is a relevant consideration if the Government's estimate of £400 million a year, increasing over time, is correct as the price to public funds of fully unfreezing the pensions paid to about 520,000 people overseas, of whom the great majority—about 470,000—live in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
	I fully understand how badly let down many—or all—of those pensioners feel. We have to recognise that they are competing for a limited pension and social security budget with, for example, many women who are shamefully treated by Britain's present pension system, or the 85,000 people in this country who have been robbed of their pensions when their funds collapsed and still have not received a penny from the financial assistance scheme.
	We have heard powerful cases on behalf of overseas pensioners tonight. When we on these Benches are arguing our spending priorities with our Treasury team colleagues nearer the next election they will certainly be in our mind. But from these Benches we cannot make firm promises of backdated uprating now.
	The Government must also tell us why progress on entering new reciprocal arrangements with overseas countries is so slow. In the past 20 years only with Barbados and the Philippines have they signed new agreements that have not been overtaken by European-wide regulation. Are they really trying? What is the strategy for reaching agreement with the key four countries? Do the Government now accept that reciprocity is not a realistic option with the overseas territories?
	In replying to the debate on the Pensions Bill last year, the then Minister Chris Pond struck an encouraging note in discussing new bilateral agreements. He stated that after around 1981 there were no new bilateral agreements. He said:
	"One way forward may be to argue for a bilateral agreement between those countries and the United Kingdom that would allow us to work out how to meet the reciprocal costs of such an arrangement".—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee B, 27/3/04; col. 259.]
	In reply to our then pensions spokesman Steve Webb, he said:
	"I hope that other hon. Members will reflect on whether further pressure should be exerted to examine whether other bilateral agreements would benefit the interests of the particular communities mentioned today".—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee B, 27/3/04; col. 259.]
	That struck an encouraging note. Is that still the Government's position or, if not, why has it changed.
	I end on as positive a note as I can. I can, at least, go further than the suggestion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes. We on these Benches and my colleagues in the Commons believe that, as a start, UK state pensions paid to people living in countries where they are not currently uprated should be increased from now on in line with UK inflation. That change would let people make an informed choice about where they lived in future. It would not be retrospective, but it would be affordable, costing an estimated £20 million this year, rising to some £100 million a year by 2008–09. It may be cold comfort to those who retired and emigrated many years ago, but we think that it would strike a fair balance between the financial pressures of the pensions crisis in this country and the injustice felt by people living abroad whose pensions are frozen. It would be a useful start and it would at least stop the problem getting worse.
	How I wish we could say that about our collapsing pension system in this country.

Baroness Noakes: My Lords, I add my thanks to those of other noble Lords to the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, for bringing the issue of the pension entitlement of overseas pensioners before the House. The noble Baroness works tirelessly for older people and it is enormously to her credit that she includes those who live beyond our shores. Of course, the noble Baroness is eternally youthful, which is why she can bring these issue before us with such energy and determination.
	I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Jones, on his maiden speech. I welcome him to our House and would say to him that perhaps he will not surprise noble Lords in future by his speeches if he advertised his presence on the speakers' list and other noble Lords might have the opportunity to hear what he has to say. I hope that we hear more from him.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, has given an excellent summary of the position of overseas pensioners and uprating and there is nothing I can add to that. The noble Baroness also conceded that the Government have established through the Carson case that they are entitled to decline to uprate the pensions of those who live abroad. The current law is now clear as a result of that case, notwithstanding the dissenting judgment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell. But, as other noble Lords have said, the heart of the issue is one of policy, regarding whether the Government should now change their settled policy of not paying pensions uprating—whatever the strength of the legal case that they have for choosing not to.
	In the last Session of the previous Parliament we had many debates on pensions in the context of the Pensions Bill, which is now an Act. Many of its provisions are aimed at reinforcing the pensions promises made by private sector employers to employees. The Government chose to use the Pensions Act to provide financial underpinning of employers' pension promises where those employers might otherwise have found reason to reduce the financial strength of the pension promise. In effect, the Government have elevated that promise above other potential claims on businesses.
	That is how the Government have told employers to behave. When it comes to public pensions, the Government take a different view. They do not acknowledge any pension promise in the sense that it is implied for employers. So for pensioners who live abroad , the Government say that they are entitled to freeze their pensions at the date that they leave the UK.
	I do not think that I am alone in finding the position of the Government somewhat illogical. On the one hand, employers have made pensions promises that are to be protected by legislation that borders on the draconian, but, on the other hand, the Government say that they have made no promise to a pensioner about his pension and it is for the Government to determine whether or not to pay uprated benefits if the pensioner chooses to live abroad.
	Of course, the legal position of the Government choosing to decline to pay uprating has been amended in those instances where the Government have chosen to enter into reciprocal social security agreements or by way of the mutual obligations of the EU. It is that selective approach to pensions that has created the sense of arbitrariness to which the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, and other noble Lords have referred. That is seen to be particularly unfair. It seems unfair that those who choose to live on the Costa Blanca, in California or Las Vegas, as was mentioned, should receive their increases while those in Australia or Canada do not. Since the lapse of the reciprocal agreement with Australia, I understand that a majority of overseas pensioners do not now receive uplifts although that does not make it any less unfair for the pensioners involved.
	Difficult issues are raised. I have a number of questions to put to the Minister. The issue of costs has been touched on by other noble Lords. How much will it now cost on an annual basis to upgrade the pensions which are frozen? There are two ways of considering the matter. One is to uprate as though uprating had already applied. The other is to start from where we are at the beginning of the year and to begin uprating from now on, as the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, suggested. My noble friend Lady Fookes suggested uprating for those over 80 years old. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us costs for all those suggestions, if not now, perhaps later. The noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, referred to £20 million for his option of uprating from the beginning of the year. It would be helpful to have that and the other figures confirmed. It is important to have those figures because the Government make a choice every year, implicitly if not explicitly, whether to uprate pensions. It is important to put that annual choice in context.
	Will the Minister also tell the House the lowest figure of frozen state pension? We have some anecdotal examples of low frozen pensions. We have to remember that policy decisions made in the aggregate have a precise human impact at the micro level. The noble Lord, Lord Jones, the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, and my noble friend Lady Fookes referred to specific examples. Alongside the total cost, it is important to know the impact on individuals.
	What policy do the Government have towards reciprocal social security arrangements? Are the Government prepared to negotiate any further such agreements? Alternatively, is it the policy of the Government actively to seek to withdraw from agreements, as they did in the case of Australia? The Government's position should be made clear.
	Finally, I raise the issue of the report expected next month by the noble Lord, Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, who was in his place earlier but has deserted us at present. Will that report cover overseas pensioners? In today's increasingly global world we should not be surprised if pensioners choose to spend all or part of their retirement abroad. The question of savings for a future generation of pensioners must take account of the possibility that some of them will choose to live abroad and will need, therefore, to have an adequate income to support that. That should be taken into account in any pensions review because that is part of today's life choices. If it is not clear that the noble Lord, Lord Turner, will be including that in his report, my plea to the Minister is to ensure that it is brought to his attention.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, we have had a good debate. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, on her initiative in opening up the debate and as someone who has been a sterling champion of older people for so many years. It is a great privilege for me to answer the debate although I doubt whether she will be pleased with the response I shall give her.
	I also welcome the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Cheltenham. It was a marvellous maiden speech. He will be warmly welcomed when he takes part in future discussions in your Lordships' House. Looking at his CV, I note that although he is clearly a keen supporter of Cheltenham Town for some reason he also watches Swindon Town. He needs to know that I was brought up in Oxford and that I spent many happy hours watching Oxford play Swindon—and mostly lose. So I look forward to discussions on that most important matter.
	I can also clear up the matter of the noble Lord's presence on a speakers' list. Noble Lords have had an agonising wait for his maiden speech. When this order was due to be debated in, I believe, the last week of July, by mistake a speakers' list was put up in the Whips' Office and most noble Lords who have spoken tonight put down their names to speak. The noble Lord, Lord Jones, did so and was listed as a maiden speaker. I think he is perfectly entitled to have attended this debate and to have carried out his maiden speech with such skill. However, if he is looking for a cosy time here, he will not get it—we may be more gentle but, my goodness, we are hard-working.
	I understand the points raised by noble Lords, and I do not seek to pretend that it will be easy to respond in the way that I shall. Of course, I understand the concerns that noble Lords and Members of Parliament have had on this issue over many years. But I reiterate that successive governments have taken the view that all those who work in the UK and have built up an entitlement to state pension should have the right to receive it. There were no plans to change that arrangement. But the pension is increased or uprated in line with UK price inflation only where the recipient is a resident in the European economic area or in a country with which the UK has a reciprocal agreement. I know that noble Lords are well versed but, for the record, I should state that the uprating of pensions paid to people residing in the EEA is a requirement of EC law. As members of the EU, we are required to comply with that. Over the years, we have entered into a number of reciprocal agreements. They are not primarily concerned with the uprating of pensions; essentially they are about providing for the protection and rights of workers who move between the UK and the other country concerned. I shall return to the question of future reciprocal agreements as a number of noble Lords raised that point.
	We have heard a very interesting summary of the Carson case, and it is good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, disagree with the noble and learned Lords who made that decision. It is worth quoting from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann—it is a slightly different quotation from the one given by the noble Lord. In fact, this is a difficult debate to sum up because noble Lords have tended to anticipate my answers. However, in the Carson case, the noble and learned Lord said that the difference in payments to non-residents was rationally justifiable as pension benefits were part of an intricate and interlocking system of domestic social welfare, making the position of a person living abroad relevantly different from that of a UK resident so as to preclude a claim for equality of treatment. I understand that the noble Lord disagrees with that but it was the view of the majority of the Law Lords. Of course, we wait to see whether Mrs Carson takes her case to Strasbourg, and clearly we shall watch with interest if that happens.
	I turn to the question of money because it is at the heart of this issue. Governments have to make hard decisions, and there is no question that, taking each of the options being presented to us, a considerable amount of public money is involved. I understand that if we fully uprated and back-paid, there would be an enormous amount to pay—in the region of £3 billion.

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I do not think that anyone would suggest that the benefit should be back-paid. The question is: if it is to be paid, from now on will it be paid on the basis of what the current pension is or what it would have been if it had been uprated in past years?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I fully understand that, and I was about to give an order of the payments because I was asked to do so. We calculate that it would cost an extra £400 million per year, increasing over time, to bring pensions paid in countries where uprating is not available up to the rate paid to pensioners resident in the UK. That would be if we did it now as opposed to backdating. For example, increasing the rate of basic pension paid to a person who left the UK in 1988 from £41.15 to the current rate of £82.05.
	If further upratings were applied to the current frozen rates, which is the point that was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and other noble Lords, the estimate that I have is that the cost in the first year would be £20 million and that it would increase to £130 million by the fifth year and would further increase over time. Those are the different orders of cost. The principle still remains the same: that each of those options would cost government money—money from taxpayers. The judgment is where to spend that money most wisely. I have to say that the Government are not persuaded that they should change their existing policy. They follow the policy of previous governments: I have wonderful quotes here from the right honourable William Hague and the right honourable James Arbuthnot defending that principle. I will not bore the House with those quotes because I recognise that this has been a constructive debate with the best of intent, but I do have them up my sleeve.
	We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, too, in the sense of the Liberal Democrats' Front Bench indecision on resource priorities. When it comes down to it, that is the nub of the problem. We are not alone in applying restrictions on payments of state pensions abroad. Many countries apply restrictions; in some cases the UK arrangements are far less restrictive than those of other countries. Under the Australian system, for instance, unless there is a reciprocal agreement a pension cannot be claimed by a person residing outside Australia. So if a person leaves Australia before reaching the age at which he or she becomes eligible for a pension, all rights are forfeit.
	New Zealand also applies a residents' condition at the point of claim. Close to home, the Netherlands is proposing to introduce similar restrictions on payments of pensions outside the EEA area, in countries where the Netherlands does not have a reciprocal agreement. So we are not alone in the kind of arrangement that we have had in place.
	A number of specific points were raised. The noble Lord, Lord Jones of Cheltenham, has a clear interest in the British Overseas Territories and I suspect that we will hear more of that in the years to come. I am advised that the figure of £500,000 is described as reasonably accurate, but I will find out whether we can obtain some harder figures—it is a ball-park figure. He is also right about defining the different countries within the category of British Overseas Territories as to which are subject to uprating and which are not.
	I turn to agreements and the future policy. I think that it is fair to say that most of the existing agreements are consolidations of earlier longstanding ones. They were entered with a view to administration improvements and efficiencies and to take account of developments and changes to both countries' schemes over time, rather than to extend the scope for payment of increased amounts of benefits abroad. It would be fair to say that the previous government in 1996 decided to adopt a policy of limiting the scope of future agreements to exclude benefits and to cover only the avoidance of double payment of national insurance or other countries' equivalent social security contributions.
	I am not aware of any current specific plans for extending reciprocal agreements. There is also the question of countries that do not have similar policies to uprate. Some may not have a social security system that we would recognise as such, where a reciprocal agreement would not be able to be brought in. I am afraid that I cannot give the noble Lord the comfort that he seeks on that point.

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: My Lords, will the Minister accept that that is rather a different tone from that struck by his right honourable friend in the other place and I wonder why that is?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I am prepared to write to the noble Lord, but tonight I am giving him my understanding of the position. I do not want to hold out hopes that cannot be delivered on. I will be happy to write to the noble Lord with fuller details, but he should not take that a reason for optimism.
	The position on winter fuel payments, which were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, is that a person entitled to a winter fuel payment in the UK may continue to receive it if he moves to another EEA country or, from winter 2002–03, to Switzerland. It is only in those countries that winter fuel payments can be applied for. We do not pay to people living in the Caribbean, other than those living in French Martinique because of its annexation to France.
	Australia unilaterally ended the social security agreement with the UK from 1 March 2001. UK pensioners living in Australia never got UK pensions uprated while living in Australia. The reciprocal agreement never provided for the uprating of pensions.
	I was fascinated when the noble Lord, Lord Turner, came into the Chamber because I wondered whether he was going to contribute to our debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, continually asked me to anticipate what would be in the Pensions Commission report. She knows that I cannot do that. I have no doubt that when the report comes out we will have an interesting debate in your Lordships' House, and I must express some disappointment at the negative tone that has again come from both Front Benches about the Government's record on pensions overall.
	A number of noble Lords asked whether we could identify the people who were suffering most hardship and make a special case for them. There is still the principle of resource and the great difficulty of targeting specific groups within that cluster of people. Such action would be as likely to be discriminatory as any other possible policy that we could adopt in that area.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, asked whether the DWP literature was clear. I am informed that the leaflets say very clearly that pensions are frozen if you go abroad, unless you go to an EEA country or to certain other countries. That brings us to the crux of the issue: in the end it is down to individual choice. That principle has been in practice for a considerable number of years. It is known to people and therefore the consequences of going to live in certain countries ought to be known by them. The position of the Government, notwithstanding my sympathy with the excellent speeches that have been made tonight, is that we do not think that we can move away from the principle that has been accepted by this Government and the previous government. None the less, it has been an extremely useful debate, and I am most grateful to noble Lords for taking part.

Baroness Greengross: My Lords, I rise with some sadness, but I expected the Minister to respond more or less in the way that he has. I was heartened by his tone because I know that he is a humanitarian person, as are all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate, and appreciates the difficult situation that many people overseas now face.
	I was particularly struck by the comment of the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, about those who retired a long time ago and whose pensions are frozen at a really paltry level, which they try to survive on. They have my greatest sympathy out of all those about whom noble Lords have spoken with such clarity. I am grateful to have such support for what I have said.
	I still hope that maybe, one day, the Government—who have done a great deal to lift pensioners in this country out of the sort of poverty that many lived in before—could do something to alleviate the situation. People find it so unfair that some are doing so well, and others are not. Could the Government not look with a humanitarian glance at the sort of people we have talked about tonight?
	I am obviously not pleased, but I understand what the Minister has said. I withdraw the Motion—with regret, as it was such a Motion—and hope that one day the position might change for those with whom everybody here has expressed much sympathy. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
	House adjourned at twenty minutes to nine o'clock.
	Tuesday, 25 October 2005.